Justin Baldoni Expands Lawsuit Against Blake Lively, Accuses Ryan Reynolds of ‘Bullying’ in ‘Deadpool & Wolverine’

Justin Baldoni has updated his lawsuit against Blake Lively, adding new claims about New York Times data. He also says Ryan Reynolds is “bullying” him with a character in ‘Deadpool & Wolverine.’ On Friday, his lawyers filed a long, 224-page complaint and created a website to share it, along with a detailed timeline.

Baldoni’s team claims that the New York Times had access to Lively’s civil rights complaint 11 days before publishing a report on December 21. The article, titled “‘We Can Bury Anyone’: Inside a Hollywood Smear Machine,” accused Baldoni and his publicists of trying to damage Lively’s reputation after she complained about sexual harassment on set.

Baldoni is suing Ryan Reynolds, Blake Lively, and the New York Times for defamation, saying they made him look bad by misusing text messages. His updated complaint says the Times posted a version of Lively’s complaint on December 10 and was possibly working on the story as early as October 31.

The Times disagreed with some parts of the complaint, while Baldoni’s team argues the metadata proves their case.

“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,” said Bryan Freedman, Baldoni’s attorney, in a statement to Variety.

The lawsuit says that a video for the Times’ story was made on December 12, nine days before the article was published. Baldoni’s team claims the Times contacted them for a comment on December 20 and set a short deadline of the next day. The article was posted on December 21 with a comment from Baldoni’s lawyer.

The New York Times responded, saying the claims about early access to Lively’s complaint were false. They explained that a date on the complaint was caused by Google software, not the Times getting it early. Both the Times and Lively/Reynolds’ teams have legal protections, but if it’s proven they had private talks outside those protections, it could weaken their defense.

The updated lawsuit also includes new claims about how Reynolds played the character Nicepool in ‘Deadpool & Wolverine.’ Baldoni says Reynolds used the character to make fun of and bully him.

Reynolds portrayed Nicepool as a vicious caricature of a ‘woke’ feminist before concluding the character’s arc with his violent shooting death at the hands of ‘Ladypool,’ a character voiced by Blake Lively.

In one of the scenes, Deadpool variant Nicepool (also played by Reynolds) comments on Ladypool by stating: “Oh my goodness, wait til you’ve seen Ladypool. She is gorgeous. She just had a baby too and [you] can’t even tell.”

This can be a reference to the fact that Baldoni commented on Lively’s body during the filming of ‘It Ends With Us.’ But this is not all.

After Nicepool comments on Lady Deadpool’s body, Deadpool states the following: I don’t think you’re supposed to say that,” to which Nicepool responds, after putting one hand on his chest, “That’s OK. I identify as a feminist.”

This is also a possible dig at Baldoni as the actor frequently identified as being a feminist. In 2017, Baldoni gave a TED talk where he talked about moving away from trying to be “man enough” and focusing on supporting women. In 2018, he wrote an essay about being a “feminist dad” to his two children with his wife, Emily Baldoni.

Last but not least, Emma Corrin’s character, Cassandra Nova also has a potential dig. When she invades Deadpool’s mind by sticking her hand into his head, and Deadpool yells about needing an intimacy coordinator.

Lively’s legal filings claim Baldoni improvised physical intimacy without rehearsals or an intimacy coordinator. In his lawsuit against the New York Times, Baldoni says the outlet and actress left out that Lively refused to meet with the intimacy coordinator to plan the film’s sex scenes.

According to IMDb production notes, the Marvel movie finished filming in June 2024, five months after Lively and Reynolds attended a meeting with Baldoni and their coproducers to address allegations of sexual harassment.

Lively’s team has not commented on the case. Both sides are scheduled to appear in court on Monday for their first hearing. Lively’s team has asked the court to stop Freedman from using a website to share more evidence, saying it could influence the jury. The website only has publicly available documents from Friday, which can also be found on CourtListener, a site for public court records.

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