It ends… with a loss.
Blake Lively was dealt yet another blow on Wednesday when a judge ordered Justin Baldoni to pay her just $400,000 of the $8 million she sought in legal fees associated with their lengthy court battle over claims he sexually harassed her on set of the set of It Ends With Us and later orchestrated a retaliatory smear campaign to destroy her reputation.
The Ruling
U.S. District Judge Lewis J. Liman explained in a written decision why Lively was not entitled to the full amount her lawyers claimed was spent after Baldoni and his production company filed their own claims against her in response to her December 2024 lawsuit.
Liman acknowledged the former co-stars “waged fierce battle against each other in court,” but he wrote that he agreed with Baldoni, who said Lively was “entitled only to the reasonable fees and costs necessary to defend against the defamation claim,” rather than her larger claim amount. Thus, Liman ruled, Lively should recoup $363,245 in attorneys’ fees and $44,206 in costs.
Lively sought compensation under a California law designed to protect survivors of sexual harassment and discrimination from retaliatory lawsuits. And while the judge found her counsel’s rates – which reportedly topped $2,000 an hour – were not unreasonable for a case with “complex legal issues,” he found that “the number of hours for which Lively seeks reimbursement is unreasonable.”
This was Lively’s last chance to receive monetary compensation stemming from the 18-month legal saga after she and Baldoni settled their dispute without a penny exchanged just two weeks before a slimmed down version of Lively’s case went to trial in Manhattan federal court.
Megyn’s Take
On Wednesday’s show, Megyn reacted to the news and explained why it amounts to the latest and, likely, final embarrassment for the actress. Below are her remarks, edited for length and clarity:
“Big news just hitting the wires. Another defeat for Blake Lively. The final defeat, I believe, in her ill-fated lawsuit against Justin Baldoni. She wanted him to pay – as her final ‘I am woman, hear me roar’ moment – $8 million in legal fees for that claim that she got dismissed of his defamation.
He tried to countersue her for defaming him. It got thrown out, and under California law, she’s entitled to fees as a result of that sequence of events. The judge has just ruled on what she will get. It’s $400,000. She wanted $8 million so she could run around telling everyone, ‘I got him in the end. He’s so dumb. He agreed to my settlement. He was telling everybody he didn’t have to pay, but I got him in the end for 8 million bucks.’
No, it’s not even half that. And you know what? If she had gone to Justin Baldoni before this whole thing got started and said, ‘Yeah, I had some problems with the way things went down on the set, didn’t appreciate this, that, and the other thing, if you pay me $400,000, I’ll go away,’ he probably would have done it in a heartbeat just to avoid this whole nightmare. It would have been a great deal for Blake, who would have still had a career and people who liked her, unlike now where she doesn’t have either.
The judge finding that the hourly rate charged by the attorneys for Lively and Baldoni was not unreasonable as the case presented substantial financial and reputational risks to both side sides, but Judge Liman rejected her demand to be reimbursed for the cost to her PR team, saying media relations were not integral to defending the defamation claim brought against Blake Lively.
While [he found] the attorney’s fees were not unreasonable, the number of hours that Lively had billed for her lawyers was unreasonable, and he criticized the discrepancies in the expenses that she was trying to claim. [Justin’s lawyer,] Bryan Freedman had come forward and said, ‘There’s some funny business afoot on this math, judge,’ and he seemed to agree.
We spoke with a woman [Victoria Burke] who was behind the creation of that [California] law that said if you’re a sexual harassment or abuse victim and you file a lawsuit against your alleged harasser and he countersues you for defamation, and then you manage to get the defamation claim thrown out, you can get your fees.
She came on this program [in June] and made a lot of news saying we never had the likes of Blake Lively in mind when we passed this law. It was meant to stop a disempowered female with no clout, connections, financial resources, or power from getting harassed by a much more powerful industry boss who could ruin her career.
The roles were reversed. Blake Lively was the bully. She, with her ‘dragons’ Taylor Swift, and Ryan Reynolds, had all the power. Justin Baldoni had none. Very few people even knew who he was prior to the commencement of this whole case.
[Lively apparently] wanted to then bring that law into existence in all 50 states, and she wanted to spearhead it. And this woman, who actually did get it passed in California and a couple of other key states, told us that she said to Blake’s team, ‘Please have Blake Lively stay out of this. I don’t want her help, and I don’t think it will be helpful to have her pick this up.’ But she wanted her Khaleesi moment. She never got it.
And guess what? She didn’t get it today either. $400,000 will probably be handled by insurance, and he won’t pay a penny. But even if he had to, that is something I believe he could handle. Unbelievable! What a great, great result for Justin Baldoni.
Congratulations to him because he fought hard and he won. Good for him. Thank God, frankly, because I think she made up the whole thing. She was absolutely beastly to him, and should be held to account. She should not be cast. We should not be supporting her at the box office. She’ll be fine. She’s got Ryan Reynolds and probably has a billion dollars in the bank, so they’ll be fine.”
You can check out Megyn’s full analysis by tuning in to episode 1,386 on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you like to listen. And don’t forget that you can catch The Megyn Kelly Show live on SiriusXM’s The Megyn Kelly Channel (channel 111) weekdays from 12pm to 2pm ET.