Blake Lively vs. Baldoni: Who Actually Won?

Becca Hartwell: Welcome to Star Witness. And, Miles, I have to say the timing on this one is almost too good. Miles: Right? We picked the right week. Becca Hartwell: So here's the setup. Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni, 18 months of lawsuits, press wars, fandom meltdowns, and on May 4th, it all just stops. Settlement. Miles: And then, get this, hours later, she walks the Met Gala carpet. Becca Hartwell: In archival Versace, smiling, waving. Miles: No money exchanged, no apology in the joint statement, but she's on the steps of the Met, possibly Becca Hartwell: Which is either a power move or the universe has a very specific sense of humor. Miles: both. Becca Hartwell: Okay, so we are going deep on all of it today. According to NBC News, settlement talks didn't even start in earnest until last month after Judge Liman threw out 10 of Lively's 13 claims. Miles: 10 out of 13, including sexual harassment, gone. Becca Hartwell: Gone. And TMZ is reporting no money changed hands. Miles: So what did anybody actually win here? That is the question. Becca Hartwell: That is the question, and we are not going to let it go unanswered. Miles: We've got the full timeline, the December 2024 complaint, the New York Times exposé, Baldoni's $400 million counter. countersuit that got dismissed. Becca Hartwell: The alleged digital smear army. Miles: Perez Hilton getting subpoenaed? Becca Hartwell: Yeah, that happens. Miles: It really does, and Miles and I are going to disagree on at least one of these. I'll just say that up front. Becca Hartwell: Oh, we absolutely will, but that's what makes it good. Miles: All right, let's get into it, starting from the very beginning. Becca Hartwell: Picture this—May fourth, twenty twenty six; Blake Lively is on the steps of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in an archival two thousand six Atelier Versace, all cotton candy pastels and billowing tulle. Miles: How? Becca Hartwell: Hours earlier, she'd settled an eighteen month legal war with her director, Justin Baldoni, and she is smiling. Miles: Okay, so just to be clear: settlement in the morning, Met Gala carpet by evening. Becca Hartwell: Same day. Miles: I mean, as moves go, that is a statement. Becca Hartwell: Right? And that image is basically the question we're spending this whole episode answering. Is that a victory lap, a getaway, or just a very well-timed invitation she couldn't cancel? Miles: TMZ did point out Her Met Gala attendants had been locked in weeks before the settlement, so maybe it's door number three. Becca Hartwell: Maybe, but here's the thing. The timing means you can't look at the two separately. The image does something to the story. Miles: It really does. And welcome, by the way. This is Star Witness. Becca Hartwell: Oh, we should probably explain what we're doing here. Miles: Just a little. Becca Hartwell: So Star Witness is where we treat celebrity scandals the way they deserve to be. deserve to be treated like actual hearings, timelines, documents, testimony, Miles: Mm motives hmm. Becca Hartwell: not just vibes and takes. Miles: I'm Miles. I push on accountability. What actually happened? Who knew what? What the legal record shows. Becca Hartwell: And I'm Becca Hartwell. I look at the media dynamics: how stories get built, how they get torn down, why the public reacts the way it does. Miles: Which in this case is extremely relevant. Speaker 3: because according to Variety, Lively accused Baldoni of not just sexual harassment on set, but of using an army of publicists to run a digital smear campaign against her when she spoke up. Becca Hartwell: And the New York Times published internal texts from Baldoni's PR team bragging they could, in their own words, bury anyone. That dropped the same week Lively filed. Speaker 3: Deadpan. Becca Hartwell: So the suit was already a PR story before. Before, it was a legal story. Speaker 3: Right, and then, plot twist, a judge tossed ten of Lively's thirteen claims last month, including the sexual harassment counts. CNN reported three claims survived to trial: retaliation, aiding and abetting retaliation and breach of contract. Becca Hartwell: Three out of thirteen-and Baldoni's own four hundred million dollar countersuit against Lively and Ryan Reynolds? Mostly also dismissed. Speaker 3: Both sides got hollowed out before anyone saw a jury. Becca Hartwell: Nothing. So with two weeks left before jury selection, NBC News reported talks had quietly started behind the scenes. They finalized it Monday morning. And according to TMZ, no money changed hands. Speaker 3: No apology in the joint statement either. Becca Hartwell: Which makes that Versace moment even harder to read. Speaker 3: Here's what I keep coming back to, though. This whole thing started on the set of a movie about a woman in an abusive relationship who keeps asking herself, do I stay or do I go? Becca Hartwell: Yeah, that's Speaker 3: So what actually happened on that set and how did a film about surviving end up becoming this? Becca Hartwell: exactly the question. And to answer it, we need to go back about 18 months to before any of this went public. So the whole thing detonated in December 2024, four months after the film opened. Speaker 3: Right. Lively filed a complaint with the California Civil Rights Department and almost simultaneously the New York Times ran a piece based on text messages from Baldoni's PR team. The headline, We Can Bury Anyone Inside a Hollywood Smear Machine. Becca Hartwell: We can bury anyone. Like, someone actually put that in a text. Speaker 3: In writing, which, not a great look. Becca Hartwell: So what did the complaint actually allege? allege because I think people remember the headlines more than the specifics. Speaker 3: According to NBC News in the amended complaint, Lively alleged Baldoni made comments about her appearance, improvised intimacy that wasn't choreographed, kissed her without consent during filming, also that he discussed his pornography addiction on set, and a separate claim that a producer showed her a video of his wife that she characterized as sexual in nature. Becca Hartwell: That last one got complicated, right? Because Baldoni's side said it was a It was a home birth video shown for a scene they were developing. Speaker 3: That's exactly the kind of dispute that made this case so messy. Every allegation had a counter narrative attached. Becca Hartwell: And speaking of counter narratives. Speaker 3: Here's where it gets good: in January, twenty twenty five, Baldoni filed a four hundred million dollar countersuit against Lively, Ryan Reynolds, and Lively's publicist, alleged they ran a coordinated campaign to take control of the film and then destroy his reputation using the harassment claims. Claims as a weapon Becca Hartwell: Four hundred million. In dollars? Miles: Not exactly a measured response. Becca Hartwell: No, it is not; and he also sued the New York Times separately. Miles: $250 million defamation suit against the Times. Both of those cases were dismissed by June 2025. Baldoni's team missed the deadline to refile the countersuit. It was done. Becca Hartwell: So within six months, he had sued basically everyone involved and lost all of it. Miles: Yeah, yeah. The judge ruled Lively's statements were legally protected as part of a formal complaint, so they couldn't form the basis of a defamation claim. The New York Times reporting was privileged too. Becca Hartwell: Here's the thing that I keep coming back to, though. Before any of this, Baldoni had positioned himself publicly as a male feminist. Author of a book on masculinity, outspoken during Me Too, that was his whole brand. Miles: Which made the PR campaign against Lively land harder with certain audiences. NPR covered this early, and the point was that his credibility as a feminist ally made the turn against her more effective. Effective, it played into the she's the difficult one narrative. Becca Hartwell: So you've got a movie about a woman surviving an abusive partner, directed by a man who marketed himself on understanding those dynamics, and that same man ends up accused of exactly the behavior he claimed to be against. Miles: That's the part the lawsuit could never fully resolve. Whatever happened on that set, the irony had already written itself into the story. Becca Hartwell: And that irony is going to matter a lot when we look at what the judge actually did with Lively's 13 claims because not all of them survived. So Judge Liman's April ruling is where things get legally messy. He threw out 10 of Lively's 13 claims, including the sexual harassment count, and that dismissal was not a jury saying this didn't happen. It was a procedural call. Miles: Right. Two separate procedural problems, actually. She was classified as an independent contractor on the film, not an employee, so she couldn't bring the harassment claim under Title- or Title VII, and the alleged conduct happened in New Jersey, but she sued under California law. Becca Hartwell: So the harassment claim wasn't evaluated on the facts at all. A jury never weighed in. Miles: Never. The judge's actual language is striking. He wrote that creative artists must have some amount of space to experiment without fear of harassment liability, which, I mean, yikes. Becca Hartwell: Super reassuring if you're a performer on a movie set. Miles: And here's the thing that really gets me about the independent contractor angle: it's not a quirk. Most actors are classified that way. So this ruling basically signals that Title VII doesn't cover the majority of performers in harassment situations. Becca Hartwell: That's a genuine loophole, Speaker 3: Oh, no. Becca Hartwell: not a conspiracy, just a gap in the law that swallows exactly the people it should protect. Miles: Three claims survived: breach of contract, retaliation, and aiding and abetting retaliation. And here's what matters: none of them named Baldoni personally. The defendants were Wayfarer Studios and the PR company. Becca Hartwell: So even going to trial, Baldoni himself wasn't the legal target anymore. Miles: Right, and NBC News reported that once that dismissal landed, settlement talks started in earnest. Teams met over the weekend of May second and third, and the deal closed the morning of May fourth, two weeks before jury selection was set for May eighteenth. Becca Hartwell: Okay, so here's the number that genuinely surprised me. TMZ reported no money changed hands. Miles: zero. She had claimed $161 million in lost earnings tied to her businesses, like Brown Betty Booze, and the settlement included no apology from Baldoni, no payment. So both sides blinked. Becca Hartwell: Baldoni doesn't admit anything; Lively walks away without a dollar. Slate actually framed it well: Miles: "Both sides can read this as a win and both sides can read this as a loss, ambiguous by design. But here's the flip side: Becca Hartwell: Lively's attorney, Sigrid McCawley, had already telegraphed this. According to Variety, McCawley said the "greatest measure of justice" was that the people and the playbook behind coordinated digital attacks had been exposed. was that the people and the playbook behind coordinated digital attacks had been exposed. exposed, just as sunlight—not as a verdict. Miles: Which brings us right to the part the courtroom never actually touched, the smear machine itself, the internet war that ran parallel to all of this, because that battle, it never needed a judge. Becca Hartwell: And some would argue it never ended. So the legal case got gutted, but the online war never stopped running, and that's where this gets really dark. Miles: Right, because what Lively was actually alleging wasn't just personal beef. Her complaint described a firm being paid to, quote, weaponize a digital army across platforms, content that looked organic but allegedly wasn't. Becca Hartwell: That's Jed Wallace, Texas-based crisis management, brought in by Baldoni's team, and the operation she described was genuinely sophisticated. Wikipedia, Reddit, Discord, TikTok, TikTok, all in the targeting docs. Miles: Bouncing, and then she subpoenaed a hundred seven content creators trying to prove it, including Perez Hilton. Becca Hartwell: Perez Hilton? Miles: The ACLU showed up to represent him pro bono. He denied everything. Lively withdrew the subpoena after saying she'd already gotten what she needed from the defendants. Becca Hartwell: Okay, but here's where I push back on this a little. Miles: Hmm. Becca Hartwell: Subpoenaing a hundred and seven creators? Gators and demanding bank records from people with 2,000 YouTube subscribers? That's not a targeted investigation. That's a dragnet. Miles: It really is, and some of those creators had tiny audiences, zero connection to anyone in Baldoni's orbit. One of them literally filed a motion asking, why am I even on this list? Becca Hartwell: Seriously, and I get it, if the smear machine is real, you need receipts, but the optics of that subpoena strategy gave Baldoni's side a- write a counter-narrative on a silver Miles: Yeah. Becca Hartwell: platter. Miles: Which is where the Depp-Heard comparison actually lands. Lively's April 2026 filing pointed out that Baldoni's team hired a crisis PR strategist with direct ties to Depp's battle against Heard. Becca Hartwell: Same firm. Miles: According to the filing, yes. In the moment that got out, audiences basically sorted themselves by who they already didn't trust. Lively's skeptics read it as, here comes Amber Heard 2.0. No, Lively supporters read it as proof the playbook was being run again on a woman. Becca Hartwell: Amber Heard even commented publicly, said she saw this firsthand, and called it horrifying, which did not necessarily help Lively's numbers. Miles: Not exactly the endorsement you want walking into a jury trial. Becca Hartwell: The asymmetry here is what gets me, though. The alleged campaign started before Lively said a word publicly, like the machine was already running. Running. Miles: That's the detail that matters. Becca Hartwell: If proven, and it was never proven at trial, that's preemptive reputation destruction which is genuinely new territory legally. Miles: Lively's attorney Sigrid McCawley said after the settlement that the greatest measure of justice was that the playbook behind these coordinated attacks had already been exposed. Becca Hartwell: Right, which Baldoni's side will read as "she settled because she couldn't prove it in court." Two people can describe the same outcome as a win. Miles: And a jury never got to sort it out. That's the unresolved piece heading into our verdict: who actually blinked and what did any of it change? So here's where we land: no money, no apology, a joint statement that says her concerns deserved to be heard, and then she walks up the Met Gala steps in a 2006 archival Versace gown, bag covered in her kids' artwork, solo. What do we do with that? Becca Hartwell: Legally nobody won. No money changed hands, according to TMZ The sexual harassment claim was dismissed on a technicality before they even shook hands, and the three claims that survived never named Baldoni personally. If you went in hoping for accountability with teeth, you didn't get it. Miles: I hear you; but here's the thing. Lively's attorneys argued the real win was exposing the playbook, the PR infrastructure. Sure, the coordinated digital attacks, the texts that read like a manual-that's in the public record now. Becca Hartwell: Sure, but it's only half a win if no jury ever weighs in on it. Slate put it well: This case was always a Rorschach test, and an ambiguous settlement keeps it that way permanently. No verdict means no definitive answer. Miles: Which is deeply on brand for this whole saga. Becca Hartwell: Genuinely. Miles: NBC News reported talks kicked off in earnest after the April dismissal. Teams met over the weekend, closed Monday morning. And then, hours later, she's on those steps, Becca Hartwell: Wow. Miles: four years off the carpet, solo, smiling. Becca Hartwell: TMZ also confirmed her invitation from Anna Wintour was locked weeks before any settlement. She was going regardless, so the timing is either the greatest accidental image in years or someone understood the optics perfectly. Miles: Both things can be true. And honestly, I think that image, Versace gown on the Met step. Steps, children's art on the clutch, lands differently depending on what you already believe: victory lap or deflection, you decide. Becca Hartwell: My read: Baldoni's Hollywood reputation is wrecked, settlement or not. His alleged PR operation is documented, but Lively walks away without a court saying she was harassed. Miles: Right. Becca Hartwell: Nobody got clean. Miles: And the bigger question her lawyers wanted answered: How does the law protect performers from coordinated digital smear campaigns? That question never got a jury answer. A judge never had to define it. Becca Hartwell: Which is the most unresolved part of all of this, honestly. The gap in the law is still a gap. Miles: So who won? Becca Hartwell: The lawyers. Miles: I cannot argue with that. Look, this is exactly why Star Witness exists, because the official outcome and the actual story are almost never the same thing. Becca Hartwell: A case closes, a statement drops, Miles: Yeah, Becca Hartwell: a woman walks a red carpet in archival Versace, and we're still asking what it meant. Miles: that's the job, and we're not done asking. Okay, so that's our episode. Settlement in the Morning, Met Gala Carpet by Evening. Becca Hartwell: same Miles: That image alone is going to live rent-free in my head. Becca Hartwell: and honestly Becca Hartwell I think that's the whole story in one frame no money no apology no jury answer on the sexual harassment claim the Rorschach test just keeps going Miles: Which is the most unsatisfying and somehow perfect ending. Like TMZ confirmed no money changed hands, CNN confirmed the three surviving claims never even named Baldoni personally. Nobody won, nobody lost, everybody walks. Becca Hartwell: And she showed up in archival Versace anyway, weeks old invitation, per TMZ. The lawsuit was almost beside the point by then. Miles: Almost. Becca Hartwell: If this case got you thinking, drop it in the reviews or tag us @StarWitnessPod. New episodes every Wednesday. Miles: Subscribe so you don't miss the verdict. And if you've got a celebrity case you want us to try next, tell us. Becca Hartwell: We'll see you in the courtroom. Miles: Later, Miles. Becca Hartwell: Later.