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The Justin Baldoni and Blake Lively texts are out! What do they tell us?
Though only Baldoni is suing for $400 million, both he and Lively are suing each other as part of the bitter It Ends With Us fallout.
Lively accuses Baldoni of sexual misconduct followed by retaliation when she reported him. She says that his lawsuit is an effort to silence his accuser.
Baldoni accuses Lively of wrestling creative control away from him and then trying to “defame” him. Do their texts back up her story, or his?
Justin Baldoni and Blake Lively’s text messages are now public
Over the past month or so, Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni have filed lawsuits against each other. Between these and the accusations of sexual misconduct and other inappropriate on-set behavior, it’s safe to say that there’s no love lost between the two.
However, there was a time when the two were getting along. This was, it seems, before their experiences as the leads in the Baldoni-directed It Ends With Us.
Page Six‘s report on their texts, which have come out as a result of their legal battle, show that they had a solid working relationship and texting rapport back in May of 2023.
According to Justin Baldoni and his legal team, he and Blake Lively used to “share stories and pictures from their lives, commiserate over family illnesses, and exchange jokes and memes.” Back when things were good.
One of Lively’s alleged texts reads: “It’s such a good feeling to get work done that we’re proud of. And to do it together. It just clicks when we find it. And that’s just as rewarding as filming it.”
In a follow-up text that the court filing cites, Lively thanked Baldoni for his “collaboration,” expressing that she felt “really proud” of the project.
Do the Justin Baldoni and Blake Lively texts really tell us anything?
At this time, their texts appeared to be friendly. “I like sentimental Blake,” Justin Baldoni once texted to Lively. He also admitted: “I also like a–hole Blake.” (She replied with a playful crass joke)
“I’m excited to start tomorrow. But it’s only one piece of the journey. We started months ago,” Lively wrote, according to Baldoni’s team’s filings.
“I’m not going to tell you that you were amazing because you tease me for being so sentimental – but you were amazing today,” Baldoni told Lively in May of 2023. She, too, thanked him for “caring so much” about the project.
The point of Baldoni’s team’s finding, it seems, is to argue that Lively “cherry-picked” messages for her own complaint. (To be clear, almost any legal filing will include relevant messages — like a text where a neighbor threatened you, but not one where they compliment your new flower garden)
Last month, Blake Lively filed a civil rights complaint along with a lawsuit. She alleged that Baldoni had sexually harassed her on the set of It Ends With Us.
Specifically, she accused him of adding and even improvising more intimate scenes, showing her graphic videos, body-shaming her, and making sexual remarks that — alongside everything else — made her feel uncomfortable. Then, when she spoke out — first, in a production meeting — he allegedly conspired to ruin her reputation.
This ugly fight isn’t going away any time soon
Though Justin Baldoni is suing Blake Lively and also suing The New York Times for “libel” after the paper reported on the subject, here is also a leaked voice recording of Baldoni allegedly apologizing to Lively.
It sounds like a lot of this will be a she-said, he-said. That said, the public perception is that many in the cast of It Ends With Us are not Baldoni fans. And, in addition to further electronic messages, there are likely records on meetings and complaints from while the project was still in production.
The trial between Justin Baldoni and Blake Lively is currently scheduled for March 2026. A lot may come out between now and then.
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