Blake Lively to begin deposition in Justin Baldoni legal battle
Blake Lively's deposition in her legal battle with Justin Baldoni is scheduled to take place Thursday.
Lively's deposition will be private, with only legal representation, a court reporter and a videographer present.
The actress' testimony may be sealed under the protective order in her ongoing legal battle against Baldoni, her former "It Ends With Us" co-star and director.
Lively is accusing Baldoni of sexual harassment and retaliation, which Baldoni has denied.
In June, Judge Lewis J. Liman of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York dismissed Baldoni's $400 million countersuit against Lively and her husband Ryan Reynolds, the couple's publicist Leslie Sloane, and Sloane's public relations company Vision PR for alleged extortion and defamation.
In response to the judge's ruling, Lively's spokesperson said in a statement, "The Court dismissed the frivolous $400 million Baldoni-Wayfarer lawsuit in its entirety."
"In the days that followed, Baldoni's lawyer said the judge's decision to dismiss their case was not a big deal as they promised to amend and refile it. As per usual, that was not true," they added. "The Court's dismissal of Baldoni's sham lawsuit was a total victory after all."
After Baldoni's lawsuit was dismissed, his lawyer Bryan Freedman told ABC News at the time, "Instead of revising the existing claims, our clients will be pursuing additional legal options that are available to us."
"The Court's decision on the motion to dismiss has no effect whatsoever on the truth that there was no harassment nor any smear campaign, and it does not in any way affect our vigorous defense against Ms. Lively's claims," added Freedman. "Discovery is proceeding and we are confident that we will prevail against these factually baseless accusations."
Lively had been scheduled to be deposed on July 17, but both her and Baldoni's legal teams agreed to postpone her deposition after Jed Wallace was dismissed from the case for jurisdictional reasons.
Wallace, the owner of Street Relations LLC, a company he describes as "a crisis mitigation firm engaged by clients to help navigate real-life human crisis, threats, trauma, and mental health concerns," had been employed by Baldoni.
In her lawsuit, Lively alleged that Baldoni had hired Wallace and his company to damage her reputation and promote negative content about her online.
Wallace denied the claims and filed a defamation suit against Lively.
In a July 16 letter addressed to Liman, Lively's team wrote, "Plaintiff Blake Lively writes to respectfully advise the Court that, following today's emergency hearing, counsel for the parties met and conferred and mutually agreed that, in light of the Court's order dismissing the Wallace Parties and Ms. Lively's right to amend the complaint on or before July 30, 2025, Ms. Lively's deposition will be continued until July 31, 2025."
