Ryan Reynolds Slams Justin Baldoni $400M's Lawsuit, Moves for Dismissal

Ryan Reynolds is pushing back hard against Justin Baldoni’s 400 million defamation and extortion lawsuit against the Deadpool leading man, Blake Lively, the New York Times and Vision PR’s Leslie Sloane.

“The entirety of Plaintiffs’ defamation claim appears to be based on two times that Mr. Reynolds allegedly called Mr. Baldoni a ‘predator,'” a memorandum of law filed Tuesday in federal court by Reynolds’ attorneys declares, referring to an amended complaint by Baldoni and others earlier this year. “But, the FAC alleges no plausible facts that suggest Mr. Reynolds did not believe this comment to be true.”

Following his longtime publicist Sloane and the NYT in wanting out of the sprawling suit that Judge Lewis J. Liman on March 6 called a “feud between PR firms,” Reynolds tries to shiv the heart of Baldoni’s case. 

The memo says Baldoni’s main accusation is “namely that Mr. Reynolds and an unnamed executive at WME had a conversation during a movie premiere about Mr. Reynolds’ ‘deep disdain for Baldoni, suggesting the agency was working with a ‘sexual predator,’” referring to remarks allegedly made a Deadpool & Wolverine screening and elsewhere.

It goes on to say: “The FAC does not allege what precise term Mr. Reynolds used in this alleged suggestion, the sentence in which he allegedly suggested it, or any information about the context of the conversations (other than that one of them was about how much Mr. Reynolds dislikes him for having sexually harassed his wife).”

On December 20, Lively filed a sexual harassment and retaliation complaint against Baldoni, his Wayfarer Studios and others with California’s Civil Rights department. 

Baldoni counter-sued Lively and Reynolds, on claims of civil extortion, defamation, and invasion of privacy. 

Crying foul over the December 21-posted NYT exposé ‘We Can Bury Anyone: Inside a Hollywood Smear Machine,’ Baldoni and his inner circle sued the paper for libel, fraud and more on New Year’s Eve for $250 million in California state court — the same day Lively officially sued Baldoni in federal court. 

Dropping a timeline online, Baldoni and his gang unleashed an expanded amended complaint on January 31. 

On February 18, the Gossip Girl alum filed her own amended complaint against Baldoni — adding self-described “hired gun” Jed Wallace, who allegedly worked with Baldoni’s publicists Melissa Nathan and Jennifer Abel to orchestrate a so-called “social manipulation” smear campaign against the actress in the lead-up to IEWU’s release.

Claiming he wasn’t involved with any smear campaign against Lively in the summer of 2024, Texas-based Wallace has sued the actress for millions in a case of his own.

Publicist Abel’s old boss Stephanie Jones of Jonesworks is also suing her ex-staffer, Baldoni and others for ending the Jane the Virgin vet’s contract with the firm and Abel going off to put up her own shingle.

Amidst all the big names including Taylor Swift, and big money, big agencies moves WME loves Reynolds and Lively, dumped Baldoni and legal big swings by everyone in this mess, Reynolds says today it’s all personal when you get down to it.

“Mr. Reynolds is a defendant in this action for one reason, and one reason only: because billionaire Plaintiff Steve Sarowitz promised to spend up to $100 million to ‘ruin’ Ms. Lively and Mr. Reynolds,” says the 38-page filing, referring to the financier and co-founder with Baldoni of Wayfarer Studios. “The First Amended Complaint that Sarowitz and his co-Plaintiffs filed seeks to fulfill that promise by polluting this Court’s docket with hundreds of paragraphs of clickbait, designed for an audience other than this Court, with virtually no bearing on cognizable legal claims.”

Citing the new-ish filing from the Bryan Freedman-represented Baldoni, his Wayfarer Studios, CEO Jamey Heath, Sarowitz, and Nathan and Abel as more a “gossip rag” full of “thin-skinned outrage” than legal document, Reynolds’ Mike Gottlieb- and Esra Hudson-led legal team want their client to be able to walk away before this matter goes to trial in next year.

With the exception of the disparaging remarks Reynolds is said to have made about Baldoni at one point, the heft of today’s filing really comes down to an assertion on Reynolds’ part that there is no there there.

“The entirety of Mr. Baldoni’s case appears to be based on Mr. Reynolds allegedly privately calling Mr. Baldoni a “predator,’ but here is the problem, that is not defamation unless they can show that Mr. Reynolds did not believe that statement to be true,” Gottlieb and Hudson said. “The complaint doesn’t allege that, and just the opposite, the allegations in the complaint suggest that Mr. Reynolds genuinely believes Mr. Baldoni is a predator,” the Willkie Farr & Gallagher LLP and Manatt, Phelps & Phillips lawyers added.

“Mr. Reynolds’ wife has accused Mr. Baldoni — privately and in multiple complaints — of sexual harassment and retaliation, and as pointed out by Mr. Reynolds’ motion, Mr. Baldoni has also openly spoken about his past of mistreating women and pushing the boundaries of consent,” the duo continued. “Mr. Reynolds has a First Amendment right to express his opinion of Mr. Baldoni, which should be comforting to a group of people who have repeatedly called Ms. Lively and Mr. Reynolds ‘bullies’ and other names over the past year.”

The trial is scheduled to begin March 9, 2026.

Towards that date, Reynolds and Lively haven’t exactly been hiding from the public eye. 

The couple were on the red carpet and, with a nod to the legal proceedings, on-air together during the SNL50: The Anniversary Special last month. Both the Wexham FC co-owner and the "Another Simple Favor" star have also been out and about at other industry events including this month’s SXSW and on social media.