Justin Baldoni’s Legal Team Has Been Criticised for Inviting ‘Public Scandal’ From Blake Lively’s Deposition
Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni remain locked in a legal battle, with a trial for Lively v Wayfarer Studios set for March 2026.
Lively filed a federal lawsuit against Baldoni in December 2024, following the release of It Ends With Us. The actress, 37, accused her former co-star and director, 41, of sexual harassment and for allegedly coordinating a smear campaign against her. Baldoni has denied the allegations, filing a $400 million countersuit that has since been dismissed.
As the case remains ongoing, it is Lively's deposition that has made recent headlines, with the actress giving her testimony on Thursday 31 July.
And after information from her deposition was leaked, Lively's attorneys accused Baldoni's legal team of being behind it, alleging that they were trying to create "a media circus". Baldoni's legal team has denied the claims.
Lively's lawyers also requested for the court to strike a 292-page draft of her deposition transcript from the court record.
According to the claim, Baldoni's team included the full transcript despite referencing only two pages. This, Lively's attorneys alleged, was to push her testimony "into the public domain as fodder for [their] media campaign.”
Judge Lewis Liman, who is presiding over the case, has now granted the motion to strike the deposition transcript from the court record. Lively's testimony is therefore sealed from becoming public.
And in a court order, per The Independent, Judge Liman appeared to criticise Baldoni’s legal team for inviting ‘public scandal’.
"The Wayfarer Parties’ attachment of the entire, nearly 300-page deposition - after citing only two pages of it in the Letter - served no proper litigation purpose and instead appears to have been intended to burden Lively (and as a result, the Court) and to invite public speculation and scandal," reads the court order, per the publication.
It later continued: "The conclusion is inescapable that the Wayfarer Parties filed gratuitous amounts of irrelevant pages so that, if Lively moved for continued sealing of the irrelevant pages, the Wayfarer Parties could then use Lively’s response for their own public-relations purposes. The Court has not only the power but also the responsibility to step in.”
The Lively v Wayfarer Studios trial is set for March 2026.
We will continue to update this story.
