Why Justin Baldoni’s Team Now Claims Blake Lively Plotted With The New York Times For Months Before Her Bombshell Complaint

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Following a summer filled with whispers and conjecture about the movie “It Ends With Us“, an explosive accusation from Blake Lively, alleging sexual harassment, retaliation, and more against Justin Baldoni, Wayfarer Studios, and others, was made public in The New York Times. This led to the director of the 2024 film filing a lawsuit against the NYT over the article, and he also filed a $400 million lawsuit against Lively, Ryan Reynolds, and more. Now, it appears that his legal team has revised their case, suggesting that Lively and the newspaper had been secretly planning for months before publishing the article, which significantly escalated the drama surrounding this film.

On December 20, Lively submitted a complaint to the California Civil Rights Department. The following day, on December 21, an article titled “‘We Can Bury Anyone’: Inside a Hollywood Smear Machine” was published by The New York Times. This article, which appeared several months after the initial reports about the strife between the co-stars of The Ends With Us, delves deeply into the complaint and provides a detailed breakdown. It also features visual representations of the texts as they appear in the legal document.

As reported by The Daily Mail, the metadata of the story might indicate that the reporters had actually been working on it for more time than a day; for instance, the primary image related to the actors involved was inserted on December 16, 2024. Furthermore, Baldoni’s team has revised their $400 million lawsuit to claim that The New York Times may have collaborated with Lively as early as October, according to the publication.

The document claims to have discovered a “date-linked message generator” within the story’s coding, with October 31, 2024, listed beside it. The revision offers two explanations as to why this date precedes Lively’s filing by several months. The first assertion is:

It’s possible that The New York Times accidentally introduced a new tool for embedding text messages within articles during regular system updates, and then found the ideal occasion six weeks later to demonstrate this new visual tool in an article that heavily utilized selected and manipulated text messages.

Simultaneously, it’s suggested that the “Gossip Girl” star and the media outlet had been preparing this tale for a significantly extended period compared to what many might anticipate, according to their assertion.

As a devoted cinema-goer, I can’t help but draw a parallel here. Just like how a director meticulously plans and stages a scene for maximum impact, it seems that the New York Times had been preparing their defamatory article since October 31, 2024. They weren’t just writing the script, they were also crafting a visually striking graphic display module to make the misleading text messages the star of the show, carefully edited and context-stripped to fit their narrative.

Additionally, Baldoni’s group asserts that the promotional material utilized by The New York Times for this particular story was made prior to the filing, as indicated by the URL with the date December 12th.

While it is common for publications to take months to produce investigative articles, this specific story should not receive the same level of legal protection that journalists usually enjoy when they quote published legal documents. The filing elaborates by suggesting that there are unique circumstances surrounding this case which warrant a different approach.

As a dedicated follower, it’s not unusual or honorable to think that a news outlet would spend weeks, even months, before releasing an investigative piece. However, the strategic timing of the damaging claims in the article under scrutiny is crucial because it undermines the legal protections that Lively, The Times, and other involved parties might have been using to shield their defamatory actions, such as litigation privilege and fair reporting privilege.

In recent developments, there has been a flurry of statements coming from both sides in the ongoing legal dispute between Baldoni and Lively-Reynolds. Last week, attorneys for Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds proposed that Baldoni’s attorney should be subject to a restraining order. Yesterday (according to Variety), it was reported that the couple aimed to throw out the director’s lawsuit. Additionally, leaked unedited footage, details about metadata in a New York Times article, and other factors have sparked widespread discussion and conjecture regarding this ongoing legal dispute.

Based on a legal expert’s assessment, the disputes between Baldoni and Lively might escalate further, and currently, the trial is scheduled for March 9, 2026. Therefore, we can expect additional details and allegations to emerge as more information about why these ‘It Ends With Us’ co-stars are taking legal action against each other becomes available.

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2025-02-01 22:37