Blake Lively Awarded More Than $407,000 in Legal Fees and Costs Following Justin Baldoni Settlement
Blake Lively Awarded More Than $407,000 in Legal Fees and Costs Following Justin Baldoni Settlement
Blake Lively has secured a partial victory in the continuing legal aftermath of her dispute with It Ends With Us costar and director Justin Baldoni, after a judge ordered Baldoni and related parties to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars toward the actress’ attorneys’ fees and other legal expenses.
According to court documents filed on Wednesday, August 26, Lively’s request for fees was granted in part and denied in part. The 39-year-old actress was awarded $363,245.40 in attorneys’ fees, along with an additional $44,206.25 in costs, bringing the total award to more than $407,000. TMZ was the first outlet to report the ruling.
The decision followed the settlement of the highly publicized legal conflict involving Lively, Baldoni, 42, and parties associated with his production company, Wayfarer Studios.
Following the ruling, Lively’s attorneys, Esra Hudson and Michael Gottlieb, described the decision as an important legal precedent.
“Justin Baldoni and the Wayfarer Parties lost their meritless retaliatory $400 million lawsuit, which two different courts held was designed to stifle public criticism and silence Blake Lively and others,” Hudson and Gottlieb said in a statement to Us Weekly.
The attorneys characterized the award as the first of its kind under the California law at issue in the dispute and argued that it demonstrated the potential consequences of filing retaliatory litigation.
They also emphasized that, from Lively’s perspective, the dispute was never primarily about financial compensation.
“As we have said from day one, Blake Lively’s case was never about money, it was about accountability,” the attorneys said.
Hudson and Gottlieb also connected the case to broader concerns surrounding alleged online reputation campaigns in the entertainment industry. Referring to the recent legal dispute involving Rebel Wilson and Amanda Ghost, they argued that Lively’s lawsuit had helped expose what they described as an industry of secret online smear campaigns that disproportionately target women.
According to Lively’s legal team, her decision to pursue the case helped create a precedent for other people who believe they have been targeted by similar tactics.
“This result demonstrates that the legal system is not as easily manipulated as social media, and still functions as a force for accountability,” the attorneys added.
Lively and Baldoni reached an out-of-court settlement in May, bringing a major portion of their contentious legal confrontation to an end. As part of the proceedings, Lively had sought approximately $8 million in damages and legal fees.
The amount ultimately awarded by the court was substantially lower than what had been requested, a point Baldoni’s attorney Bryan Freedman highlighted in his own response to Wednesday’s decision.
Freedman focused specifically on Section 47.1, the California law involved in the dispute.
“Section 47.1 is not a perfect law, but it is an important one designed to protect real survivors, who deserve to see this law tested and perfected in the court of law,” Freedman told Us Weekly.
He argued that the statute had been applied in ways that were not originally intended. Nevertheless, Freedman said his clients deliberately agreed as part of the settlement not to appeal the Section 47.1 ruling, preventing either side from seeking to overturn the law through an appeal in this particular case.
Freedman portrayed the judge’s decision to award only a fraction of the requested amount as a victory for Baldoni and his clients.
He said Judge Liman had considered what he called Lively’s “outrageous and unreasonable” request for more than $8 million before awarding approximately 5 percent of that amount in fees and costs.
“The ruling is a significant victory for my clients and sends a clear message that, no matter how powerful you may be, the courtroom is not a place to take advantage of the law for your own personal gain,” Freedman said.
The legal battle grew out of Lively’s allegations concerning her experience working with Baldoni on the film adaptation of Colleen Hoover’s It Ends With Us.
Lively named Baldoni, who both directed and starred alongside her in the movie, in a lawsuit accusing him of sexual harassment, creating a hostile working environment and participating in an effort to damage her reputation through a social media campaign.
Baldoni strongly denied Lively’s allegations.
He subsequently filed a $400 million defamation lawsuit against Lively and others. That lawsuit was ultimately dismissed by a judge, becoming one of the most consequential developments in the legal conflict between the two actors.
After the parties reached their settlement in May, Lively’s attorneys publicly declared the agreement a major victory for their client.
“This settlement is a resounding victory for Blake Lively,” Gottlieb and Hudson said at the time.
They argued that because Baldoni and the other individual defendants had agreed to the settlement and waived their rights to appeal certain aspects of the case, they could potentially face personal liability connected to what Lively’s attorneys characterized as an abuse of the legal system intended to silence and intimidate her.
The lawyers also pointed to language acknowledging that Lively’s concerns “deserved to be heard,” arguing that the settlement undermined claims that the actress had fabricated her allegations of harassment and retaliation.
Her legal team said Lively’s objective throughout the dispute had been to expose what she viewed as attempts to weaponize both online reputation campaigns and retaliatory lawsuits.
“That mission continues,” Hudson and Gottlieb said.
Baldoni remained largely quiet publicly in the immediate aftermath of the May settlement. Nearly two months later, however, he addressed the experience in a video posted to Instagram in July.
“We are healing, and if you’ve ever been through something traumatic, you know that healing isn’t linear,” Baldoni said.
He explained that the experience had caused him and his family to reconsider what mattered most to them, emphasizing their relationships with family, friends and their broader community.
Baldoni also spoke about his faith, saying he and his family had become “closer and more devoted and steadfast” in their beliefs.
The actor then thanked supporters who had defended him throughout the dispute, particularly during periods when he felt he was unable to respond publicly.
“There were so many of you who, when we didn’t have a voice, were our voice,” Baldoni said.
He added that supporters had trusted their instincts, devoted time to defending him and his family and provided encouragement during an extremely difficult period.
“Thank you does not feel like enough,” he said, adding that the support of friends, relatives and members of the public had played an important role in helping his family move forward.
Wednesday’s ruling therefore represents another significant chapter in a legal dispute that has extended far beyond the production and promotion of It Ends With Us. While Lively received only part of the compensation she requested, her attorneys are presenting the award as a precedent-setting acknowledgment of the consequences of retaliatory lawsuits.
Baldoni’s legal team, meanwhile, is emphasizing the court’s rejection of the overwhelming majority of the requested fees and portraying the reduced award as favorable to its clients.
With both sides offering sharply different interpretations of the same decision, the ruling underscores how the legal battle between the former costars continues to generate competing narratives even after their broader dispute was resolved through settlement.
