Justin Baldoni‘s production company Wayfarer Studios LLC was sued by The New York Times in September 2025 over a dismissed defamation case against the publication.
Baldoni and Wayfarer originally sued The New York Times for $250 million in December 2024 over accusations that the outlet libeled the actor in its coverage of Blake Lively’s sexual harassment suit against her It Ends With Us director and costar.
Baldoni and his associates alleged that The New York Times “cherry-picked” information to mislead readers about his dispute with Lively in its December 2024 article “We Can Bury Anyone: Inside a Hollywood Smear Machine.” The New York Times has consistently stood behind its reporting.
A significant legal setback for Baldoni and Wayfarer took place in June 2025 when Judge Lewis J. Liman dismissed both Baldoni’s defamation suit against The New York Times and his $400 million countersuit against Lively. Three months later, The New York Times started legal proceedings against Wayfarer to recoup at least $150,000 in costs associated with Baldoni’s dismissed legal action, according to court documents obtained by Us Weekly.
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Keep scrolling for a full rundown of the case.
Why Did Justin Baldoni Sue The New York Times?
Us confirmed that Baldoni and Wayfarer were among a group of 10 plaintiffs — also including publicists Melissa Nathan and Jennifer Abel, plus It Ends With Us producers James Heath and Steve Saraowitz — who began legal proceedings against The New York Times over its December 2024 article “We Can Bury Anyone: Inside a Hollywood Smear Machine.”
Chief among their complaints was that The New York Times and its reporters Megan Twohey, Mike McIntire and Julie Tate supposedly “cherry-picked and altered communications stripped of necessary context” to make Lively look more favorable in her sexual harassment suit against Baldoni. The lawsuit accused Lively — who the actor also countersued at the same time — of engaging in a “strategic and manipulative” media campaign by creating false “sexual harassment allegations to assert unilateral control over every aspect of the production [of It Ends With Us].”
“The Times story relied almost entirely on Lively’s unverified and self-serving narrative, lifting it nearly verbatim while disregarding an abundance of evidence that contradicted her claims and exposed her true motives,” Baldoni and his fellow plaintiffs alleged in their lawsuit.
Baldoni specifically rebutted accusations in the Times article that he repeatedly entered Lively’s It Ends With Us trailer while she was breast-feeding and once showed her a “pornographic video” featuring a fellow producer’s wife.
“This claim is patently absurd,” Baldoni’s legal team insisted in their suit. “The video in question was a (non-pornographic) recording of [producer Jamey Heath’s] wife during a home birth — a deeply personal one with no sexual overtone. To distort this benign event into an act of sexual misconduct is outrageous and emblematic of the lengths to which Lively and her collaborators are willing to go to defame plaintiffs.”
In response to Wayfarer’s defamation suit, a New York Times spokesperson told Us that the role of “an independent news organization is to follow the facts where they lead.”
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“Our story was meticulously and responsibly reported. It was based on a review of thousands of pages of original documents, including the text messages and emails that we quote accurately and at length in the article,” a rep for the outlet responded. “Those texts and emails were also the crux of a discrimination claim filed in California by Blake Lively against Justin Baldoni and his associates.”
According to the spokesperson, The New York Times planned to “vigorously defend against the lawsuit.”
Why Was Justin Baldoni’s Lawsuit Against The New York Times Dismissed?
Baldoni was dealt a double blow in June 2025 when Judge Liman dismissed both his lawsuit against The New York Times and his $400 million countersuit against Lively.
“The Wayfarer Parties have not alleged that Lively is responsible for any statements other than the statements in her CRD complaint, which are privileged,” Judge Liman ruled in his opinion and order filing on June 9. “The Wayfarer Parties have alleged that [Lively’s husband Ryan] Reynolds and [publicist Leslie] Sloane made additional statements accusing Baldoni of sexual misconduct and that the Times made additional statements accusing the Wayfarer Parties of engaging in a smear campaign.”
The judge went on, “But the Wayfarer Parties have not alleged that Reynolds, Sloane or the Times would have seriously doubted these statements were true based on the information available to them, as is required for them to be liable for defamation under applicable law. The Wayfarer Parties’ additional claims also fail. Accordingly, the Amended Complaint must be dismissed in its entirety.”
Judge Liman gave Baldoni and his legal team the chance to amend the dismissed claims for breach of implied covenant and tortious interference with contract, though the filmmaker’s lawyers opted not to do so.
“The Court’s decision on the motion to dismiss has no effect whatsoever on the truth that there was no harassment nor any smear campaign, and it does not in any way affect our vigorous defense against Ms. Lively’s claims,” Baldoni’s attorney Bryan Freedman told People in June 2025. “Discovery is proceeding [in Lively’s lawsuit] and we are confident that we will prevail against these factually baseless accusations. Instead of revising the existing claims, our clients will be pursuing additional legal options that are available to us.”
Lively’s lawyers Esra Hudson and Mike Gottlieb hailed the countersuit dismissal as “a total victory and a complete vindication for Blake Lively” in a statement to Us.
“As we have said from day one, this ‘$400 million’ lawsuit was a sham, and the Court saw right through it,” they said at the time. “We look forward to the next round, which is seeking attorneys’ fees, treble damages and punitive damages against Baldoni, Sarowitz, Nathan and the other Wayfarer Parties who perpetrated this abusive litigation.”
Why Did The New York Times Sue Justin Baldoni and Wayfarer?
The New York Times Company sought “compensatory and punitive damages” of at least $150,000 related to Baldoni’s dismissed defamation claim in a motion filed in New York’s Supreme Court in September 2025, according to court filings obtained by Us.
The company accused Baldoni of violating New York’s anti-SLAPP law against lawsuits that seek to “inhibit the exercise of free speech and harass publishers by forcing them to expend time and resources on baseless litigation.” If Baldoni is found to have violated the law, he and Wayfarer associates may be required to pay “costs and attorney’s fees” related to their original suit.
“It is now well-established that news coverage of matters of public interest fall within the scope of the law,” the New York Times lawsuit asserted.
The legal filing accused Baldoni of wrongly pursuing allegations of “false light” and “promissory fraud” against The New York Times, particularly over the timing of the publication of “We Can Bury Anyone: Inside a Hollywood Smear Machine.” In his original filing, Baldoni accused The New York Times of violating a promise to hold off publication of the article until “noon on December 21, 2024” to give the filmmaker adequate time to respond.
The New York Times published the article just after 10 a.m. ET on December 21 but only after “receiving comment from the attorney for Wayfarer and its affiliates,” according to the publication.
“The Amended Complaint tried to construe the email as promising that the Article would not be published before noon on December 21, 2024,” the Times’ legal team argued.
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The New York Times Company subsequently alleged that Judge Liman’s June 2025 dismissal of Baldoni’s defamation claim proved that the actor’s accusations “lacked any basis in fact or law.”
“The District Court’s opinion makes clear that Wayfarer and its affiliates both commenced and continued the lawsuit against The Times without a substantial basis in fact and law,” The New York Times asserted.
The New York Times Company is seeking “reasonable costs, attorney’s fees and disbursements” pursuant to New York civil rights law, plus “further relief as [the] Court deems just and proper.”
In response to this latest suit, Baldoni’s lawyer Freedman told People: “Win, lose or draw, we refuse to cave to power brokers even in the face of seemingly impossible odds.”
“We continue to stand tall for a reason: the pursuit of truth, in the face of giants,” Freedman went on. “Our unwillingness to compromise our values, no matter the odds or the outcome, reflects a simple conviction that standing up for the truth and what is right matters. If the current laws protect legacy media in this manner, perhaps it’s up to us to ignite that change.”
Meanwhile, Lively’s sexual harassment trial against Baldoni is expected begin in March 2026.