Actress Blake Lively has been awarded $400,000 (£340,000) of the $8m (£6.9m) she tried to claim from her former co-star Justin Baldoni to cover her legal fees and costs to fight a defamation case he brought. Lively initially sued Baldoni, her co-star and director of the 2004 film It Ends With Us for sexual harassment and retaliation, before he countersued for defamation. A judge dismissed his defamation complaint in 2025, and she argued she was entitled to $7.5m (£6.4m) to cover her lawyers' fees and $540,000 (£460,000) for other costs.
But the judge said she should receive considerably less - a total of $407,451 - because she requested money for more people and time than were necessary to defend the defamation claim. She should not have claimed money for other "intertwined" costs to do with the wider legal battle, and took a "blunderbuss approach" to calculating how many hours of lawyers' time she could claim for, the judge said. Baldoni denied harassing Lively or orchestrating a smear campaign against her.
Earlier this year, the judge dismissed parts of Lively's lawsuit against him including the sexual harassment element. The following month, the pair agreed a settlement to end the case. The judge allowed Lively to recover some expenses under a 2023 California law designed to protect sexual harassment accusers from retaliatory defamation lawsuits brought by the men they accused.
Both sides painted US District Judge Lewis Liman's latest decision as a victory. Lively's lawyers said: "This first-ever award of fees and costs under this California law is historic, and demonstrates that there are real consequences of bringing retaliatory lawsuits. "As we have said from day one, Blake Lively's case was never about money – it was about accountability." Baldoni's lawyer Bryan Freedman said: "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." Justin Baldoni describes painful saga as he breaks silence on Blake Lively dispute Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni settle lawsuit over It Ends With Us film Judge dismisses most of Blake Lively's claims in harassment lawsuit against Baldoni
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