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Blake Lively wants Justin Baldoni to pay up.
Most people are aware of the clear smear campaign that sprang up out of nowhere in 2024. But the damage is done.
There are still people who disparage Lively after that relatively brief blitz of negative publicity.
She’s totaled up the lingering effect — and says that it has cost $161 million.
Blake Lively’s team has done the math on what Justin Baldoni allegedly owes her
Variety reports that Blake Lively claims that Justin Baldoni’s smear campaign against her cost her $161 million.
Smear campaigns harm reputations. That is their design.
Lively’s attorneys have totaled up the costs of a smear campaign dragging down her public image amidst the launch of It Ends With Us.
The projected losses include $56.2 million in past and future earnings from acting, producing, speaking engagements, and endorsements.
Then there is $49 million in losses form Blake Brown, her haircare line. That goes hand-in-hand with Lively’s Betty Buzz/Betty Booze beverage company, from which she claims a $22 million loss.
Lively’s attorneys say that Lively has also suffered at least $34 million in reputational harm.
That totals up to about $161.2 million. However, that is not the end of it.
Her legal team is seeking at least three times that quantity in punitive damages.
Simply put, punitive damages are supposed to penalize the alleged wrongdoer. Other damages for losses are just supposed to help a victim break even.
In this case, Lively’s team is arguing that Baldoni deliberately sabotaged her public image through this smear campaign. So she wants him to pay up, both to make up for lost funds and as a consequence for allegedly doing this to her in the first place.
Team Baldoni has known these figures since this summer
If you’re wondering where these numbers originated, they hail from a disclosure that the defense received in July.
That followed Blake Lively’s lawsuit against Justin Baldoni back in December 2024.
She has accused the director who was also her co-star on It Ends With Us of sexual harassment and generally unprofessional behavior during the making of the film.
Lively is not the only actress to have filed a complaint during production.
She accuses Baldoni of launching this smear campaign against her in order to preemptively silence anything that she had to say.
For some, this strategy appears to have worked.
On social media, some argued that Lively’s complaint about Baldoni only came after the negative publicity erupted out of nowhere, primarily upon the internet’s favorite disinformation engine: TikTok.
That’s not quite true — as she had filed a complaint during filming, while she did not officially report him in a courtroom capacity until months after the film’s release, when the smear campaign damage had been done.
It is important to mention that Baldoni has denied the allegations against him.
The pursuit of these damages is only one prong in the ongoing legal war between Baldoni and Lively.
This ugly legal war is eating up their lives
Ultimately, the clash between Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni appears to be a defining moment for one of them.
Even if Baldoni is innocent of all allegations and ends up being vindicated in court, there are millions of people who had never heard of him until a little over a year ago.
That means that, for a lot of people, their first impression of him is a man who filed a massive lawsuit against an actress who accused him of misconduct. Some argue that, no matter the truth of the matter, this was a public image mistake.
Ultimately, we won’t know who will — or will not — receive vindication in court until next year.
Lively and Baldoni go to trial in March 2026.
Blake Lively Seeks $161 Million in Damages from Justin Baldoni After Devastating Smear … was originally published on The Hollywood Gossip.