Claiming Justin Baldoni has nothing but “clickbait” falsehoods and “hurt feelings” on him, Ryan Reynolds wants out of the It Ends With Us star’s $400 million defamation and extortion 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 today in federal court by Reynolds’ attorneys declares of 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,” the documents adds of the remarks allegedly made a Deadpool & Wolverine screening and elsewhere.
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,” 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.’’ 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).
“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. “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,” the document adds of the bulging Baldoni FAC of January 31.
Read Ryan Reynolds’ memo to be dismissed from the $400M Baldoni lawsuit here
Citing the new-ish filing from the Bryan Freedman represented Baldoni, his Wayfarer Studio, CEO Jamey Heath, financier Sarowitz, and publicists Melissa Nathan and Jennifer 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 May 2026.
With the exception of the disparaging remarks Reynolds is said to have made about Baldoni at one point, today’s filing’s heft really comes down to an assertion on the Canadian actor’s 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 told Deadline today, “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 continue, “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.”
Representatives for Baldoni and his inner circle did not respond to request for comment on Reynolds’ filing.
Digging into the Baldoni FAC claims, Reynolds’ dismissal effort doesn’t play Nicepool:
“The Wayfarer Parties say that Mr. Reynolds extorted them, but fail to allege that he received any money or property. They claim he interfered with a contract without identifying what that contract is, what provisions were allegedly breached, or even which of them were parties to it. They assert $400 million in damages without explaining anything about who suffered that loss, in what proportion, as a result of which claims, or what proximately caused such losses. The FAC is long on hyperbole, prose, and “claims,” but devoid of any facts necessary to state ones recognized by law. It is, in essence, a burn book filled with grievances attempting to shame Mr. Reynolds for being the kind of man who is “confident enough to listen” to the woman in his life and to hold her “anguish and actually” stand with her.3 The FAC is, in sum, a textbook retaliatory SLAPP suit, and it should be dismissed with prejudice.
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