Ryan Reynolds Files for Dismissal From Justin Baldoni’s Lawsuit

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Ryan Reynolds has requested to be taken out of Justin Baldoni’s legal case, as he argues in a strongly-worded submission that it is not possible for Baldoni to bring a lawsuit against him based on alleged emotional distress.

What did Ryan Reynolds say in his filing?

This week, Reynold and his lawyers submitted a request to dismiss Baldoni’s lawsuit (as reported by Deadline). They stated that Baldoni’s entire basis for suing Reynolds revolves around two instances where Reynolds is accused of labeling Baldoni as a “predator,” along with the upcoming character “Nicepool” in 2024’s Deadpool & Wolverine. According to Baldoni, this character was created and included specifically to ridicule him.

The main point of the Plaintiffs’ defamation case seems to stem from two instances where Mr. Reynolds is said to have labeled Mr. Baldoni as a ‘predator.’ However, the initial filing of the lawsuit does not provide enough convincing evidence that Mr. Reynolds did not genuinely believe this accusation to be true.

Reynolds’ legal team, headed by Mike Gottlieb and Esra Hudson, persisted in dismantling Baldoni’s lawsuit, labeling it more as a “tabloid-style gossip piece” brimming with “exaggerated indignation” rather than a genuine legal document. While Reynolds’ motion doesn’t explicitly deny the accusation of calling Baldoni a predator, it does argue that if such an event occurred, it would not amount to defamation since Reynolds genuinely believed it.

According to the motion, it seems that Mr. Baldoni’s argument hinges on the claim that Mr. Reynolds supposedly labeled him as a “predator” in private. However, there’s a catch: for this not to be considered defamation, it needs to be proven that Mr. Reynolds didn’t genuinely believe that statement. The complaint, however, fails to provide such evidence and instead suggests that Mr. Reynolds truly believes Mr. Baldoni is a predator.

Mr. Reynolds’ wife has made several accusations against Mr. Baldoni, including sexual harassment and retaliation. These claims are supported by Mr. Reynolds’ motion, which also mentions that Mr. Baldoni himself has spoken publicly about his history of mistreating women and crossing boundaries with consent. This gives credence to Mr. Reynolds’ right to share his opinion about Mr. Baldoni. It’s worth noting that a group of people have been labeling Ms. Lively and Mr. Reynolds as ‘bullies’ and other derogatory terms for the past year.

Lively’s initial complaint alleges that Baldoni created a hostile work environment

The entire situation originated from a formal complaint lodged by Lively against Baldoni in December. In this complaint, she detailed that the filming of “It Ends With Us” became so intolerable that an urgent meeting was convened due to her allegations of a toxic work atmosphere. During this meeting, Lively requested Baldoni to cease sharing explicit videos or images of women with her, to refrain from discussing his history of pornography addiction, to avoid discussing sexual experiences in her presence, and also to stop making comments about her weight.

As a gamer, I’d put it like this: Contrary to what was initially agreed upon with Wayfarer Studios, the production company behind the movie, and the cast, it seems the focus of promotions for my character shifted from emphasizing my strength and resilience to highlighting the film as a tale about domestic violence. However, in interviews, I, Blake Lively, felt that Baldoni was reneging on our agreement by discussing the film’s heavy, serious themes instead.

According to Lively, it was alleged that Baldoni and his PR manager, Melissa Nathan, brainstormed strategies for a social media smear campaign intended to tarnish her reputation. The documents submitted by Lively contain approximately 22 pages of text exchanges between Baldoni’s publicist and Nathan, where they expressed a desire to “discredit” Lively severely.

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2025-03-19 01:11