This week on Legally Us, Rachael Bennett, a certified family law specialist and senior attorney at Sullivan Law & Associates, breaks down Justin Baldoni and Blake Lively’s legal settlement.
On Monday, May 4, news broke that Blake Lively, 38, and Justin Baldoni, 42, had reached a settlement in their lawsuit after nearly two years, just days before the case was scheduled to go to trial. Lively alleged that her It Ends With Us costar and director sexually harassed her, fostered a hostile work environment, and orchestrated a smear campaign against her. Baldoni strongly denied the claims and filed a countersuit against the actress, though his case was dismissed in June 2025.
“When cases settle this close to trial it usually means the risk of putting the outcome in a jury’s hands becomes too dangerous for at least one, and here, probably both sides,” Bennett tells Us. “I think the timing here matters. The settlement came right after the judge dismissed the majority of Blake Lively’s claims, including that headline-grabbing sexual harassment allegation. By the end, the case had been narrowed primarily to just her retaliation claims and those contract related claims.”
She adds, “That changes the leverage dramatically once those bigger emotional claims are gone. I think both sides may have decided that continuing into a highly public trial with massive legal fees and some potential reputational risk simply just wasn’t worth a gamble anymore.”
Following the settlement announcement, Lively and Baldoni released a joint statement to Us via their attorneys, saying, “The end product — the movie ‘It Ends With Us’ — is a source of pride to all of us who worked to bring it to life. Raising awareness, and making a meaningful impact in the lives of domestic violence survivors — and all survivors — is a goal that we stand behind. We acknowledge the process presented challenges and recognize concerns raised by Ms. Lively deserved to be heard.”
The statement continued, “We remain firmly committed to workplaces free of improprieties and unproductive environments. It is our sincere hope that this brings closure and allows all involved to move forward constructively and in peace, including a respectful environment online.”
“I do think the language of that joint statement is really interesting. This is definitely something that was negotiated line by line between the parties and the details there, I think, can give us subtle clues about who carried leverage in the negotiations and what each side was willing to publicly concede,” Bennett explains.
“Normally we’d expect very neutral, I’d say, like “corporate style fluff.” This one went further than that. It’s not generic and it specifically acknowledged that concerns raised by Blake Lively during production, quote deserved to be heard, which definitely leans towards validating at least part of her position publicly, but at the same time there’s no apology and no admission of wrongdoing by Justin Baldoni, that statement very carefully frames the dispute more as a conflict and quote challenges during the filmmaking process, rather than admitting to any kind of misconduct.”
Bennett says the statement was a “small win for Blake, buried within the broader victory for Justin that this litigation essentially goes away.”
Judge Lewis J. Liman previously recommended that both parties consider settling outside of court rather than going to trial. The duo were set to kick off court proceedings on May 18.
Lively subsequently filed a notice of settlement, according to docs obtained by Us on Thursday. In the filing, Lively requested damages to cover her attorneys’ fees and costs, as well as compensatory and punitive damages. She claimed that she is “entitled” to receive damages because of the “harm” she suffered as a result of Baldoni’s “retaliatory defamation action.”
Lively’s attorneys Michael Gottlieb and Esra Hudson issued a statement following the new motion.
“This settlement is a resounding victory for Blake Lively,” they told Us on Thursday. “By agreeing to this settlement, and waiving their right to appeal, Justin Baldoni and every individual defendant now face personal liability for abusing the legal system to silence and intimidate Ms. Lively. And by admitting that Ms. Lively’s concerns ‘deserved to be heard,’ the defendants have ended once and for all the fiction that Ms. Lively ‘fabricated’ claims of sexual harassment and retaliation.”
Baldoni’s lawyer Bryan Freedman also released a statement on Thursday to Us, calling the settlement “a win and total victory for the Wayfarer parties.”
“The court had already dismissed 10 of Ms. Lively’s 13 claims, including every sexual harassment claim, every defamation claim, and all claims against the individual defendants,” Freedman told Us. “Ms. Lively voluntarily dismissed the rest. In our view, they settled because they knew they were going to lose in court. All that remains is a pending request for fees based on a very narrow issue that has been with the court since September 2025.”
