It was meant to be the final chapter of one of Hollywood's most bruising legal sagas — but the closing ruling in Blake Lively's battle with It Ends With Us director Justin Baldoni has delivered a decidedly mixed result for the actress.
US District Judge Lewis Liman on Wednesday awarded Lively $407,451.75 in legal fees and costs — a figure representing roughly 5% of the more than $8 million she had initially sought to recover from Baldoni and his production company, Wayfarer Studios.
What the Judge Actually Decided
The award breaks down to $363,245.40 in attorneys' fees and $44,206.35 in legal costs. In his ruling, Judge Liman found that Lively was entitled only to reasonable fees connected to her successful defence against Baldoni's defamation claims — not the full eye-watering sum her legal team had billed.
While the judge accepted that her lawyers' hourly rates were not unreasonable given the complexity and high stakes of the case, he took issue with the sheer volume of hours claimed and the quality of the documentation submitted to support them.
"The number of hours for which Lively seeks reimbursement is unreasonable," Judge Liman wrote, adding that Lively had not submitted the actual invoices — only a declaration from a purported attorney fee expert who had reviewed the billing records.
The judge also ruled that certain costs — including work connected to media relations — were not recoverable under the legal-fee award. Lively had originally requested $7.5 million in attorneys' fees and a further $540,000 in court costs; the sum she ultimately received is just double what the New York Times was awarded for defending itself against Baldoni's separate defamation action.
How We Got Here
The dispute between the two had its roots in the making of It Ends With Us, the 2024 domestic abuse drama based on Colleen Hoover's bestselling novel. In December 2024, Lively filed a complaint with the California Civil Rights Department, alleging that Baldoni and Wayfarer Studios had orchestrated an online smear campaign against her in retaliation for raising concerns about sexual harassment on set.
Baldoni fired back with a defamation suit of his own, accusing Lively and her husband Ryan Reynolds of fabricating allegations in an attempt to seize creative control of the film. His claims against Lively, Reynolds and others were ultimately dismissed — with the judge finding that Lively's original allegations were protected by litigation privilege. The broader dispute was then settled in May 2026, just weeks before a scheduled federal trial, leaving only the question of legal costs for the court to resolve.
Wednesday's ruling effectively closes the book on that outstanding matter, drawing a legal line under an 18-month battle that gripped Hollywood.
The Aftermath — and a Notable Silence
While the ruling formally concludes the legal proceedings, the personal fallout continues to simmer. In July, Baldoni and his wife Emily broke their silence on the ordeal, posting a video to Instagram in which Emily described the toll the battle had taken on the family.
"We've had to wrestle with so many things and try to understand so many things," Emily Baldoni said. "Like, how could something like this even happen? Let alone disguised as a fight for women."
Lively, meanwhile, has remained publicly silent on the entire legal saga. She has made high-profile appearances at the Met Gala and at the World Cup final since the settlement, but has yet to address the dispute directly. She was also notably absent from Taylor Swift's wedding last month, amid reports that the pair's close friendship had become strained after Swift was subpoenaed by Baldoni's legal team during the proceedings.
For now, the cameras have stopped rolling on this particular drama — even if the whispers show no sign of fading.
