After reaching a settlement with Blake Lively in the legal dispute surrounding their 2024 film It Ends with Us, actor Justin Baldoni has broken his silence on the two-year-long court battle. In an Instagram video, Justin and his wife, Emily Baldoni, called the legal battle traumatic and spoke about how they navigated the difficult period together. However, they refrained from taking Blake Lively's name in the video.
'There’s so much to say'
In the clip, Justin says, “We have not spoken publicly for the better part of the last two years, and it’s not because we haven’t had anything to say. Because lord knows we have, but it just felt like every time we went to make a video like this, we wanted to speak, something was telling us not to. It just didn’t feel like the right time, and we were talking about it and feeling into it and praying about it. Emily added, “This feels like the moment. There’s so much to say.”
Justin mentioned that they wouldn't be able to cover everything in the video message. Meanwhile, Emily expressed that they have “immense gratitude for ... so many people and so many things that have happened to us.” Justin agreed and said, “Gratitude has saved us."
'It was disguised as a fight for women'
Recalling the "injustice" they experienced, Emily said, "Doesn’t negate the injustice and the pain that we have also felt in the last few years. We’ve had to wrestle with so many things and try to understand so many things, like how could something like this even happen? Let alone disguised as a fight for women. So much to unpack.”
{{/usCountry}}Recalling the "injustice" they experienced, Emily said, "Doesn’t negate the injustice and the pain that we have also felt in the last few years. We’ve had to wrestle with so many things and try to understand so many things, like how could something like this even happen? Let alone disguised as a fight for women. So much to unpack.”
{{/usCountry}}'A lot of trauma for us'
She further added, "There has been a lot of trauma for us to move through as a family, which also makes it hard to speak."
Justin added, “We don’t even know if this is the right thing to say. We just know we need to share something. What I will say is that there have been so many painful things that have been spoken into existence over the last couple of years. That created so much noise, and we didn’t want to add to the noise. So we just wanted to let the justice system run its course.”
Emily said, “The truth and the facts have spoken for themselves.”
'We are healing'
Talking about how they are doing currently, Justin said, “We are healing. If you’ve ever been through something traumatic, you know that healing isn’t linear. It looks different every day. We have had to rethink for ourselves what is real, and what matters. It’s this. It’s our family, it’s our friends, it’s our community, who have been there for us, it’s our faith. We have grown closer, more devoted, and steadfast in our faith than we’ve ever been.”
Emily added, “There’s so much more to say. The time will come. But for now, we are going to focus on continuing the healing and hanging out with our kiddos and enjoying life.”
Justin and Blake's legal war
Almost two years ago, Blake Lively sued Justin Baldoni and other members associated with their film It Ends with Us in December 2024. She alleged sexual harassment against Baldoni. He denied all the allegations and went on to file a $400 million countersuit against Lively, her husband Ryan Reynolds, publicist Leslie Sloane, and Sloane’s PR firm, alleging defamation and breach of contract. His suit, however, was later dismissed.
In May, the two sides reached a settlement. This happened about a month after a judge threw out 10 of the 13 allegations in Lively's case, including harassment and defamation.