It Ends With Us was released in August of 2024, and around the same time, reports about a conflict between its director and star, Justin Baldoni, and its lead, Blake Lively, started to circulate. In December of that year, the actress filed a complaint, and it turned into a legal battle. Now, it's been well over a year, this dispute is ongoing, and experts have weighed in on how it's impacting the actors' reputations.
The latest input from these experts comes in the weeks after court documents were released that revealed tons of text messages between the actress, director and various very famous people. The list of names involved with these texts includes (and is not limited to) Taylor Swift, Hugh Jackman, Matt Damon, Ben Affleck, and It Ends With Us actress Jenny Slate. In a report from Us Weekly, it goes over this situation and dives into the impact it could have on Lively and Baldoni’s reputations, specifically. According to entertainment and defamation lawyer Tre Lovell, the damage caused here is greater than “any monetary compensation” either of them could get:
The hit this has taken on their brands is much greater than any monetary compensation that could be garnered.
Following that comment, PR expert Steven Cuoco was quoted as saying that it seems like both Baldoni and Lively are “shooting themselves in the foot” with this situation. On the whole, both parties have taken hits in this ongoing legal battle, and said battle shows no sign of slowing down, seeing as the trial is set for May.
Overall, this situation has stayed prominent in the news for well over a year, and it’s involved a bunch of A-listers, including Scarlett Johansson, Jameela Jamil and more, especially after the texts were released. According to Cuoco its evolved into a “spectacle” that’s far too big:
This case is being turned into more of a spectacle than it needs to be.
Another PR expert, Mark Borkowski, noted that this whole story, which he described as a “legal psychodrama” earlier in the report, is no longer about who is right and wrong. Instead, he claims that it's about something different, explaining:
It’s no longer a story about right and wrong. It’s about power, proximity and what happens when private grievance collides with celebrity scale. No one leaves clean.
Over the last year, there has been discussion about what Lively and Baldoni are losing through all this. According to the Gossip Girl star’s lawyers, she’s lost hundreds of millions in acting jobs and her business ventures because of this drama. Meanwhile, reports about how much the Jane the Virgin star has spent on this legal issue have come out, too.
Looking at both their careers, while they’ve been working, neither has done much since It Ends With Us came out. Lively did star in Another Simple Favor last year and has a few projects in pre-production. Meanwhile, Baldoni has not acted in anything since 2024, he has one movie he directed in post-production, and he’s served as a producer on a few 2025 projects, including Elanor the Great.
Now, as their legal battle continues, it will become clearer how it's impacting their reputations and careers. They're set to go to trial on May 18, and in the lead-up to that date, more reports about their dispute and how it's impacting them are sure to come out.
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