Justin Baldoni has shared more text messages he says are from his It Ends With Us co-star Blake Lively and her husband, Ryan Reynolds.
The text messages were released on a website, titled The Lawsuit Info, created to help defend himself against Lively’s sexual harassment allegations.
On the new website, published on Sunday, Baldoni, 41, also shared an amended complaint in his case against Lively, Reynolds, Lively’s PR firm and the New York Times, as well as a 168-page document entitled “Timeline of relevant events” related to the case and the production of the film.
Baldoni sued his co-star Lively, 37, and her husband, Reynolds, 48, for defamation earlier this month. Baldoni’s suit seeks at least US$400 million in damages that include lost future income. That lawsuit came the same day that Baldoni sued the New York Times for libel, alleging the paper worked with Lively to smear him.
The timeline includes emails and text messages that were allegedly sent leading up to and during the filming of the movie. Many of the text messages have been previously shared in court documents, but some of them are new.
“Lemme know what you prefer 🙂 if you knew me (in person) longer you’d have a sense of how flirty and yummy the ball busting would play. It’s my love language. Spicy and playfully bold, never with teeth,” the text continued. “And him serving it back to her is just as important. You don’t usually see both the man AND the woman with such agency and humor. Anyway, I can act it out for you next week to make sure it comes through. Or I can send now. Lemme know what you prefer. Xx.”
Baldoni’s team also uploaded screenshots of text messages that they allege are between the Jane The Virgin actor and Reynolds.
The texts are dated February 2023 and show Baldoni introducing himself to Reynolds. The Deadpool star responds with a message about his excitement for It Ends With Us.
“I’m excited for you to work together,” Reynolds allegedly wrote. “I’m excited for Blake to crack open her creative piggy bank with someone as dynamic as you. This is gonna be INCREDIBLE… I happen to adore you, Justin.”
Baldoni also claims that Lively and Reynolds prepared a statement for him and his firm, asking him to take the blame for the “troubled production” of the film and the negative press Lively received while promoting it. Baldoni and his team claim they refused to issue the statement provided by the couple.
The statement was allegedly written in August 2024 by Lively and Reynolds after they claimed that Baldoni was allowed to discuss “more serious messaging” while promoting the film.
The statement reads, “It Ends with Us was a troubled production which we take full accountability for. We are very sorry to everyone we caused upset to privately and publicly.”
“Blake Lively, Katie Scott Colleen Hoover, the entire cast and crew led with professionalism every step of the way, any negativity aimed at them is ours to own,” the statement continued. “We mutually agreed that the cast would be promoting the film separately and understood why.
“We have always said we are not perfect and even if unintentionally make mistakes, we will always own them. We hold ourselves accountable, it’s not anyone’s job but ours and that’s part of being ‘man enough.’ We will practice what we preach. We are learning and growing from the experience and we thank everyone for their patience as we find a better way to proceed.”
After the website was published, Baldoni’s lawyer Bryan Freedman released a statement to the press, saying, “The decision to amend our lawsuit was a logical next step due to the overwhelming amount of new proof that has come to light. This fresh evidence corroborates what we knew all along, that due to purely egotistical reasons Ms. Lively and her entire team colluded for months to destroy reputations through a complex web of lies, false accusations and the manipulation of illicitly received communications.”
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“The ongoing public interest in this case online has ironically shed light on the undeniable facts pertaining to The New York Times and how heavily Ms. Lively and her representatives were not only deeply involved in the attempted take down and smear campaign of Mr. Baldoni, Wayfarer Studios and their teams but that they themselves initiated it,” Freedman added.
Text messages between Lively and Baldoni, where she seemingly alludes to Taylor Swift as “one of her dragons,” were released earlier this month. Swift and Lively have been very close friends since 2015 and the pop star is the godmother of Lively’s children.
(Swift is not named as a defendant in Baldoni’s new suit and her name is not mentioned in the filing. There is only a reference to “Taylor” in a text message between the two co-stars.)
In the text messages between the pair, Baldoni goes into detail about the rooftop scene in the movie that Lively had allegedly reworked. His lawyers claim that the actor “felt obliged to text Lively to say that he had liked her pages and hadn’t needed Reynolds and her megacelebrity friend to pressure him.”
According to the suit, Lively invited Baldoni to her penthouse in New York, where Reynolds and a “megacelebrity friend” both praised Lively’s version of the rooftop scene.
“Also was working on rooftop scene today, I really love what you did. It really does hep a lot,” Baldoni wrote in the text message. “Makes it so much more fun and interesting. (And I would have felt that way without Ryan and Taylor). You really are a talent across the board. Really excited nd [sic] grateful to do this together.”
In a text from Lively, according to the suit, she calls Reynolds and another person, whose name is redacted, “absolute titans as writers and storytellers outside of their primary gig.”
“They also know I’m not always as good at making sure I’m seen and utilized for fear of threatening egos, or fear of affecting the ease of the process. They don’t give a sh*t about that. And because of that, everyone listens to them with immense respect and enthusiasm. So I guess I have to stop worrying about people liking me,” Lively allegedly wrote.
Lively goes on to compare herself to Khaleesi, a Game of Thrones character played by Emilia Clarke.
“If you ever get around to watching Game of Thrones, you’ll appreciate that I’m Khaleesi, and like her, I happen to have a few dragons. For better or worse, but usually for better. Because my dragons also protect those I fight for. So really we all benefit from those gorgeous monsters of mine. You will too, I can promise you,” Lively wrote.
Lively and Baldoni’s case headed to court on Feb. 3 as the Gossip Girl actor’s legal team began to discuss a potential gag order.
On Monday, a U.S. judge admonished lawyers for Baldoni and Lively not to publicly discuss the actors’ competing civil lawsuits.
Lively’s lawyer Michael Gottlieb complained to U.S. District Judge Lewis Liman at a hearing in Manhattan federal court that Baldoni’s lawyer Bryan Freedman violated professional ethics rules for lawyers by accusing Lively of “bullying.”
“It’s very hard to un-ring the bell,” Gottlieb said, arguing that such statements could taint the jury pool for the scheduled March 2026 trial.
Freedman suggested that his comments to People magazine and in a podcast appearance were a response to the Dec. 21 New York Times article that “completely devastated” Baldoni.
“This has not been a one-way street,” he said.
Liman adopted a New York state rule barring most out-of-court statements that could affect a case’s outcome, with an exception for protecting a client from prejudicial adverse publicity.
The judge could sanction lawyers for violations. Neither Gottlieb nor Freedman objected. Baldoni and Lively were not in attendance at Monday’s hearing.
Lively’s lawyers Gottlieb and Esra Hudson said in a statement, “We are pleased with the result of today’s hearing and eager to move forward immediately with discovery in this case.”
“The court granted our request that all attorneys in the matter actually follow the rule of law and not make any statements that could prejudice a jury,” they continued. “This case deals with serious allegations of sexual harassment and retaliation. We will hold the defendants accountable, and we are confident that once all the evidence is submitted in this matter, Ms. Lively will prevail.”
According to The Hollywood Reporter, Freedman said, “I couldn’t be more pleased with how the case was handled today. We’re going to move as quickly as possible and prove our innocence.”
On Jan. 21, the same day Baldoni’s legal team released raw, unedited footage from the film following Lively’s sexual harassment claims, Lively and Reynolds’ lawyers issued a letter to New York federal judge Lewis J. Liman seeking a gag order for Baldoni’s lawyer, Freedman.
According to documents obtained by multiple entertainment publications, Lively’s legal team alleged that “virtually every day” since she filed her lawsuit against Baldoni, “Mr. Freedman has given television interviews, appeared on podcasts, issued inflammatory written statements, and leaked information (including, remarkably, documents as banal as document preservation demands to third parties) to the Hollywood press and tabloid media.”
The couple’s lawyers also alleged that many of the public statements made by Freedman, “not only continue the campaign of retaliation that was the subject of Ms. Lively’s First Cease and Desist, but they contain numerous new false statements about Ms. Lively and others.”
Global News has not independently viewed the legal documents.
In a statement to Global News on Jan. 22, Freedman said his team released the footage because “Baldoni exercises his right to publicly defend himself by putting forth actual facts and evidence.”
“Prior to filing her lawsuit in court, Ms. Lively went to The New York Times in an effort to publicly destroy Justin Baldoni. When Mr. Baldoni exercises his right to publicly defend himself by putting forth actual facts and evidence, for Ms. Lively and team this instantly becomes morally and ethically wrong,” the statement read.
“Ms. Lively wants very different standards to apply to her but fortunately, truth and authenticity apply to everyone and can never be wrong. Looking at the video and the evidence to come, I can understand why Ms. Lively would now, not want this to play out in public.”
On Jan. 27, Judge Liman set a March 9, 2026 trial date and moved an initial conference from mid-February to this week as the public feud between Lively and Baldoni continues to grow. He told lawyers to be prepared to address complaints about pretrial publicity and lawyer conduct.
Lively and Reynolds have not responded publicly to the website as of this writing.
—With files from Global News’ Michelle Butterfield, Reuters and The Associated Press
