Blake Lively’s ongoing legal battle against director Justin Baldoni is taking a dramatic turn, with her legal team now drawing direct parallels to one of Hollywood’s most polarizing courtroom sagas — the Johnny Depp and Amber Heard defamation trial.
According to court filings obtained by The Daily Mail, Lively alleges that Baldoni enlisted the same crisis PR operative used by Depp during his high-profile Virginia trial a move her team claims coincided with a sudden “torrent of online hatred” directed at her during the 2024 release of It Ends With Us. Her lawyers argue the connection is central to understanding what they describe as a coordinated retaliation campaign against her.
If the strategy is allowed, it could introduce references to the six-week Depp-Heard trial, which ended with a $15 million jury verdict in Depp’s favor. Heard had argued during those proceedings that she was the target of a deliberate online smear campaign a claim that closely mirrors what Lively is now alleging in her own case.
Baldoni’s legal team is pushing back firmly. His lawyers argue that Lively’s reputation had already taken a hit before any alleged misconduct occurred, and they are seeking to introduce prior media coverage from 2024 that purportedly showed she was already being called a “mean girl” in certain circles.
“Evidence of Lively’s preexisting reputation is not being offered for the truth that she is a ‘mean girl,’ ‘bully,’ difficult to work with or ‘tone deaf’ but to establish Lively’s reputation prior to the alleged ‘smear campaign’ to show that defendants’ alleged conduct did not cause further harm to her existing reputation,” Baldoni’s lawyers wrote.
Amid the legal turbulence, Lively has had her husband, Ryan Reynolds, firmly in her corner. During an April 19 appearance on Today’s Sunday Sitdown, Reynolds was unequivocal in his support. “I’ve never in my life been more proud of my wife,” he said. “People have no idea what’s really going on, you know? And I’ve just never in my life been more proud of someone with that level of integrity that brings that with them and carries that with them in everything that they do.”
Reynolds has previously spoken out about the broader pressures women face in Hollywood. At the National Board of Review Awards in January 2025, he addressed what he sees as a persistent double standard. “Stories about women seem to be held to a different set of standards, and that is to say that they’re often held to the standards women are held to in life,” he said.
“You must be perfect. You must hide your strength. You must shape-shift or placate.” The case has also drawn in another major name. Taylor Swift has reportedly been pulled into the proceedings after her name appeared in jury selection materials ahead of the trial, included in a list of high-profile figures that potential jurors were asked to recognise.
The trial is scheduled to begin in New York on May 18 and could last up to four weeks. While several of Lively’s claims, including sexual harassment allegations, have already been dismissed, she is still seeking to introduce testimony from multiple women who she says witnessed or experienced inappropriate behavior on set.
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