It Ends With Us actor Justin Baldoni is breaking his silence following his two-year legal battle with co-star Blake Lively.
The 42-year-old actor and his wife Emily Baldoni released a video on Instagram, thanking fans for their support during a “painful” time filled with “a lot of trauma.”
“We have not spoken publicly for the better part of the last two years, and it’s not because we haven’t had anything to say,” Baldoni began the video. “Because Lord knows we have, but it just felt like every time we went to make a video like this, we wanted to speak, something was telling us not to. It just didn’t feel like the right time.”
Baldoni said that after “talking about it” with his wife and “praying about it,” this now “feels like the moment” to speak out, following his legal dispute with Lively, which began in 2024.
“There’s so much to say and it makes it hard to speak. It makes it hard to figure out what is right for us in this specific moment,” Emily added.
“We’re not going to say it all in this video,” Baldoni said.
Emily said that it felt important to say that they were “sitting here today feeling immense gratitude for so many things and so many people.”
“Gratitude has saved us,” Baldoni added.
“What I will say is that there have been so many painful things that have been spoken to existence … over the last couple years,” Baldoni continued. “And that created so much noise, and we didn’t want to add to the noise, so we just wanted to let the justice system run its course.”
“The truth and the facts have spoken for themselves, and here we are,” Emily said, noting that the gratitude they felt “doesn’t negate the injustice and pain that we have also felt in the last few years.”
She said their family “had to wrestle with so many things and try to understand so many things, like how could something like this even happen, let alone disguised as a fight for women.… Reality is that there’s been a lot of trauma for us to move through as a family.”
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The couple said they and their two children are now focused on healing.
“If you’ve ever been through something traumatic, you know that healing isn’t linear,” Baldoni shared. “It looks different every day. We have had to rethink for ourselves what is real and what matters. It’s this. It’s our family, it’s our friends, it’s our community, who have been there for us, it’s our faith. I think we’re closer, more devoted, and steadfast in our faith than we’ve ever been.”
Baldoni went on to thank their family, friends and community for their support during the legal battle.
“Thank you does not feel like enough,” Baldoni said. “But we’re here because of so many of you and all of our friends and family. And one thing that we’ve learned is that when God presses the reset button and everything else is stripped away, that that’s when love shows up.”
Emily hinted that Wednesday’s video would not be the last time they spoke out about the legal battle.
“The time will come,” she said, “but for now, we are going to focus on continuing the healing and hanging out with our kiddos and enjoying life.”
Lively and Baldoni’s legal saga began in December 2024, when Lively accused Baldoni of sexual harassment and retaliation, first in a complaint. Then, in a lawsuit about a week later, Baldoni claimed in a January court filing that he felt pressured by Lively and her husband Ryan Reynolds’ “megacelebrity friend” to approve scene revisions after a meeting at Lively and Reynolds’ home.
Baldoni sued Lively and Reynolds for defamation in January 2025. That lawsuit came the same day that Baldoni sued the New York Times for libel, alleging the paper worked with Lively to smear him.
In late March, Lively asked a judge to dismiss Baldoni’s countersuit, calling his claims “vengeful and rambling,” after she filed the lawsuit against him for sexual harassment and retaliation.
Last June, a judge dismissed Baldoni’s $400-million defamation claim against Lively and Reynolds after finding that her accusations of sexual harassment were legally protected, making them exempt from libel claims.
Baldoni and Wayfarer Studios denied Lively’s allegations and Baldoni was dismissed as a defendant in U.S. District Judge Lewis Liman’s April 2 ruling, when he threw out Lively’s sexual harassment claims.
Lively and Baldoni settled in May just before a trial was to start in federal court in Manhattan following Lively’s claims that Wayfarer Studios retaliated against her for complaining about misconduct and organized what she refers to as a “smear campaign” aimed at destroying her reputation and career prospects through negative social media posts.
In a joint statement released in May, lawyers for Lively and Baldoni shared their feelings about moving on from the legal battle.
“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,” both parties’ lawyers said in a statement to Variety.
“We acknowledge the process presented challenges and recognize concerns raised by Ms. Lively deserved to be heard. 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,” Bryan Freedman, Ellyn Garofalo, Michael Gottlieb and Esra Hudson said.
In May, Baldoni’s lawyers asked a judge to deny any future proceedings related to Lively’s request to recover legal fees and damages that resulted from the legal dispute against Baldoni and his company, Wayfarer Studios.
Lively received no money in the settlement, but a judge subsequently ruled that she is entitled to recover some legal costs she incurred after Baldoni filed a countersuit against her. The judge must still approve the amount she is seeking.
Last week, Lively’s legal team filed documents, obtained by Global News, seeking more than US$8 million in legal costs from Baldoni and Wayfarer Studios despite their agreement to resolve their legal differences in May.
In the legal filing, Lively’s lawyers disclosed the amount of $7,495, 526.87 in lawyer fees from two law firms that represented her and $539,514.01 in other expenses.
Lively’s lawyers said their work on the case for the It Ends With Us star’s lawsuit was “comprehensive and necessary to achieve the complete win that was secured.”
Baldoni and Wayfarer have until July 13 to respond to Lively’s new motion.
© 2026 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.
