Hollywood Hearsay: Blake Lively v Justin Baldoni Part 1

By: Matthew Russell Lee

Narrated by: Virtual Voice

A movie with an anti-domestic violence message has resulted in charges of sexual harassment by a woman who downplayed the DV aspect of the film, against a man who played it up, then countersued for defamation. It Ends With Us? Not really.

On February 3, 2025 Kurt Wheelock went in early to the SDNY to live-tweet the hearing on the lawyers' out-of-court statements. Outside the courthouse there were paparazzi. Kurt filmed them then went in.

At 11 am Judge Lewis J. Liman came in to an "All Rise!" He asked Justin Baldoni's lawyer why he had filed a 168 page narrative with his amended complaint.

It's a timeline, Bryan Freedman said. Blake Lively's lawyers, including one fresh from the collection action against Rudy Giuliani before Judge Liman, said Freedman was violating New York State rules for lawyers. Judge Liman, with Freedman not objecting, applied the rules to the cases.

As Kurt Wheelock live tweeted, some replied that the case was "trending right wing;" other more serious followed urged him to go back to covering real crimes. But when he did, a fentanyl dealing case resulting on a five year sentence, those same serious people did not respond in any way.

Anyway, he could do both. And this Lively case reflected something about the culture, about the moment. But what?