Baldoni challenges Lively bid to shield celebrity names in ‘It Ends With Us’ harassment lawsuit

Justin Baldoni has moved to block Blake Lively’s attempt to keep the names of some of Hollywood’s biggest stars — including Taylor Swift and Ryan Reynolds — out of public court filings in her sexual harassment lawsuit over the film It Ends With Us, escalating a fight over how much of their celebrity circle the public is allowed to see.

Redactions dispute puts celebrity privacy vs. public access in focus

In a filing described in a report published Wednesday by Page Six, Baldoni objected to Lively’s bid to redact or anonymize several A-list friends and associates in documents tied to the case. Those names reportedly include Swift, Reynolds, Emily Blunt, Hugh Jackman and America Ferrera, among others.

The dispute turns a seemingly technical question about redactions into a test of how U.S. courts balance public access with the privacy of ultra-famous nonparties at the center of a high-profile harassment and retaliation suit.

Lively, 37, sued Baldoni, his company Wayfarer Studios, producer Jamey Heath, investor Steve Sarowitz and several public-relations executives on Dec. 31, 2024, in federal court in Manhattan. Her complaint accuses them of creating a sexually hostile work environment on the Los Angeles-area set of It Ends With Us, then orchestrating a coordinated smear campaign and contractual retaliation after she objected.

Baldoni, 41, the film’s director and her co-star, has denied wrongdoing. Through his attorney Bryan Freedman, he has called Lively’s allegations “shameful” and “categorically false,” saying they misrepresent tense but lawful creative and business disputes.

The case, before U.S. District Judge Lewis J. Liman in the Southern District of New York, is scheduled for trial on May 18, 2026, after the court pushed the original March date back to accommodate criminal cases. Jury selection is expected to begin in April, with the trial projected to last about four weeks.

How Swift and Reynolds became part of the record

The latest clash focuses on how the court will treat the constellation of famous figures around the two central parties.

Swift, a longtime friend of Lively’s who licensed her song “My Tears Ricochet” for the film’s soundtrack, has already been pulled into the litigation. Last June, Liman ordered Lively to turn over text messages with Swift that relate to the movie or the lawsuit, rejecting a request to shield them entirely.

Because Lively herself had cited Swift as someone she confided in about problems on the production, the judge wrote that Baldoni’s request for those communications was “reasonably tailored” to evidence that could “prove or disprove” the harassment and retaliation claims. He allowed the messages to be produced under a protective order, limiting how widely they can be disseminated.

Baldoni’s lawyers also briefly subpoenaed Swift for documents and potential testimony before withdrawing the demand. Afterward, Liman warned Baldoni’s side that using subpoenas to generate publicity, including a dispute over whether Swift had supposedly agreed to a deposition, could expose them to sanctions.

Reynolds, Lively’s husband, is more directly entangled. He was a defendant in Baldoni’s separate $400 million countersuit filed in January 2025, which accused Lively, Reynolds and their publicists of defamation and extortion and alleged they fed false information to reporters in a bid to destroy Baldoni’s career. Liman dismissed almost all of those claims in June 2025, finding, among other things, that many of the challenged statements were protected by litigation privilege. Baldoni did not revive the few claims the judge allowed him to replead, and the dismissal became final later that year.

Reynolds also attended a meeting on the It Ends With Us set after Lively raised concerns about Baldoni’s conduct. According to Lively’s filings, she and Reynolds told producers they wanted sexually explicit talk and references to Baldoni’s alleged pornography issues to stop in front of her, and asked that there be no more comments about her weight or about her late father. The meeting also addressed pressure Lively says she faced to expand sex scenes beyond what she had agreed to.

Baldoni: celebrities are central, not peripheral

In his new objection, Baldoni argues that people like Swift and Reynolds are not peripheral figures but active participants in key conversations who should be identified when those conversations are described in public documents. Page Six reported that Baldoni’s lawyers have previously referred to Swift and Reynolds as Lively’s “dragons” — a label they say reflects the influence her powerful friends allegedly brought to bear on creative and marketing decisions.

Lively’s side has sought at times to refer to certain nonparty celebrities by generic labels, such as “Non-Party Celebrity 1,” or to black out their names in public versions of filings. While her attorneys have not publicly detailed their reasoning in this latest dispute, they have previously accused Baldoni of “dragging Taylor Swift into this” as a tactic to generate attention and claimed that his legal team is trying to litigate in the press.

Liman has signaled that he is wary of both sides using the docket as a public-relations tool. In a prior order, he wrote that motions in the case had often functioned “both [as] a legitimate litigation tactic and an attempt to maneuver in the broader court of public opinion.”

What the law typically allows

Federal law strongly favors open access to court records, particularly documents filed in connection with substantive motions or trials. Judges may allow sealing or redactions to protect compelling interests such as the safety of witnesses, the privacy of minors or confidential business information, but they must find that secrecy is narrowly tailored and that no less restrictive alternative exists.

Courts also typically distinguish between private individuals and public figures. While nonpublic third parties can sometimes be anonymized when they appear only tangentially in filings, celebrities such as Swift, Reynolds, Blunt, Jackman and Ferrera already have a diminished expectation of privacy and, in this case, have been repeatedly named in coverage and prior rulings.

Legal experts say that combination could make it harder for Lively to justify broad redactions, especially if the judge views the redaction requests as driven more by reputational concerns than by safety or legal necessity.

Underlying allegations and what comes next

The fight over names comes against the backdrop of Lively’s core allegations. She claims Baldoni and producer Jamey Heath subjected her and others to repeated comments on women’s bodies, graphic sexual discussions and references to Baldoni’s supposed pornography addiction during production. She alleges that when she pushed back — including by refusing additional sex scenes and challenging marketing plans — she was met with retaliation and a “multi-tiered” plan to damage her reputation across social media and the press.

Her complaint cites internal messages from Baldoni’s publicity team that she says show an intent to ruin her career. In one text described in filings, a publicist allegedly wrote that Baldoni “wants to feel like [Ms. Lively] can be buried,” adding, “We can’t write we will destroy her.”

Baldoni and Wayfarer have rejected that characterization. After his countersuit was largely thrown out last summer, Baldoni’s camp said in a statement that Lively’s claims remained “no truer today than they were yesterday,” and maintained that he was the target of a calculated campaign to smear him.

Beyond the immediate dispute, Liman’s upcoming ruling on redactions could influence how transparent the May trial will be. A decision in Baldoni’s favor may make it more difficult for either side to keep celebrity names or portions of testimony out of public view. A compromise could follow the model of the Swift text-message order, allowing full disclosure within the litigation while limiting what appears on the public docket.

For Lively, the outcome will affect how much scrutiny falls on friends who are not accused of wrongdoing but may be called as witnesses or have their private messages read aloud in court. For Baldoni, it will shape whether jurors and the broader public see the case as a conflict between two individuals or as a clash between a director and a powerful Hollywood circle.

As the trial date approaches, the question facing the court extends beyond who did what on a movie set. It also encompasses how much of the informal power structure around that set — the group chats, emergency meetings and star-studded support systems — should remain hidden behind black bars, and how much belongs in the public record.