Who’s Winning the ‘It Ends With Us’ Public Relations War?

Who’s winning the PR war in the ongoing legal battle between “It Ends With Us” co-stars Justin Baldoni and Blake Lively? Possibly neither of them, legal experts say, as people — whether they’re in the industry or not — grow increasingly weary of their war of words and lawsuits of the past month.

“There seems to already be a public fatigue with the back and forth here, with neither seemingly clearly free from blame, and no single incident that either can point to as a clearly horrendous act that deserves public backlash,” Los Angeles attorney Camron Dowlatshahi of MSD Lawyers told TheWrap on Thursday.

Lively gained a tremendous advantage by filing her sexual harassment suit against Baldoni before Christmas, according to legal analysts, but public support for the actress might be shifting as more text messages between the actors emerge, potentially providing room for debate about her allegations. 

On Thursday, Baldoni filed a whopping $400 million countersuit against Lively and her husband, Ryan Reynolds, whom he accuses of mocking him with the Nicepool character in “Deadpool & Wolverine.” Last week, Baldoni’s lawyer Bryan Freedman promised that the former “Jane the Virgin” actor was planning to sue Lively “into oblivion.”

“The amount is a bit ludicrous and done to create some shock value,” Dowlatshahi said of Baldoni’s suit.

“It is not uncommon for lawsuits of this type to seek astronomically high damages awards, but I don’t imagine anyone thinks that amount would be awarded and certainly would be very difficult to prove,” Nicole Page, an entertainment lawyer who specializes in sexual harassment cases, said.

Dowlatshahi said that the timing of Lively’s sexual harassment suit during a “dead news cycle” was a “very strategic” move by Manatt, the legal firm representing the actress. “The public got to sit with the Blake Lively version of events for a bit. I think, in the court of public opinion, Blake Lively is ahead right now,” he told TheWrap before Baldoni’s countersuit.

Page said she was “really struck” by the fact that Lively’s suit against Baldoni was filed as a federal court claim in the Southern District of New York.

“That tells me she is willing to sit for depositions and maybe even go to trial,” she explained. “This is not something many people want to do for a whole host of reasons, especially when it comes to sexual harassment and emotional distress damages. You have to prove your damages, which might mean handing over your medical records or your psychiatric record.”

Page, who represented a woman whose memo proved pivotal in the Harvey Weinstein case, emphasized that the sexual harassment suit is “a serious thing” and not just part of a PR campaign. She added: “You don’t make those kinds of allegations and make them publicly if you’re not ready to be deposed and you’re not ready to testify at trial.”

Lively’s case was also helped by The New York Times’ sympathetic Dec. 21 article, “‘We Can Bury Anyone’: Inside a Hollywood Smear Machine,” which covered the filing that alleged the actor and his team conspired to ruin Lively’s reputation ahead of any allegations of wrongdoing on his part. That prompted Baldoni to file a $250 million defamation suit against the publication on Dec. 31.

Meanwhile, in a much lower key, Lively’s team dismissed allegations from the Baldoni camp  — including the claim that this is all the actress’ fault because she “didn’t read the book” the film is based on —  calling it a “distraction” and a “classic” attempt to “blame the victim.”

Scores of actors, including Lively’s “Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants” co-stars, have backed the actress since she filed her suit, while Baldoni has been dropped by WME, sued for breach of contract by his former publicist and become, essentially, persona non grata in Hollywood. 

Support for Lively split along gender lines in the admittedly small sample of three entertainment attorneys TheWrap spoke with. Page backed Lively and predicted Baldoni would soon fold and settle the case. However, two male lawyers, Dowlatshahi and Tre Lovell, felt that Baldoni was gaining credibility and public sympathy.

After Freedman mentioned texts between the actors that potentially contradict some of Lively’s claims, Lovell said he’s been seeing more support for Baldoni online and among his colleagues.

“We’re seeing another side of the story,” Lovell said, adding that the subsequent press about Lively “isn’t very nice.” He continued: “People are starting to think, ‘There’s something more than this.’ What the Baldoni team is doing is working. The tide is turning a little bit.”

Will this case go to trial, or is it more likely to settle?

The battle between Baldoni and Lively has frequently been compared to the case of Johnny Depp and Amber Heard, where Depp ultimately triumphed in court against Heard in a case fueled by negative media and social media takes about his ex-wife.

Dowlatshahi told TheWrap that, like the Depp case, he does see this going to trial. While most cases settle, “this one is unique in that it is a reputational battle. It’s not really about money,” Dowlatshahi said. “Since both sides want to be vindicated in the court of public opinion, it has a much higher chance [of going to trial] than a typical case.” (Lively is asking for unspecified compensatory damages to cover “lost wages” and “mental pain and anguish.”)

However, both Page and Lovell believe that the case, no matter how acrimonious it becomes, will eventually be settled out of court, and that the longer this drags on in the public eye, the more damage it will do to both of their careers.

“Both sides are going to wish this never got out, because most people don’t care,” Lovell said. “This is a feud among celebrities. Nobody got murdered, nobody got raped. It can only hurt the celebrities and their brand,” he said. “They’re going to want to resolve this because it’s just going to hurt their brand if this goes on for the next two or three years.”

Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Kristin S. Escalante has scheduled the first court proceeding in the case, a case management conference, for May 1.

Is Lively’s greater star power a factor?

“Blake Lively is the person making that movie happen,” Lovell said of the actress’ star status vs. the lesser-known Baldoni. “I’d be surprised if she’s not the reason why the movie got greenlit. So I don’t know if I see her being the victim as much as her team is claiming.”

Page agreed that “everybody knows who Blake Lively is” and that she’s married to “one of the most powerful men in Hollywood” in Reynolds. By contrast, she said, Baldoni is “kind of a C-lister.” In addition to “Jane the Virgin,” his credits include directing the 2019 tragic teen romance “Five Feet Apart.”

“I’m not worried about Blake Lively,” Page said. “Look at which way the wind is blowing. Nobody wants anything to do with him.”

Does the New York Times defamation suit hold merit?

There was no consensus among the lawyers about the merits of Baldoni’s suit against the Times.

“I don’t think the defamation suit is going to be successful,” Page said. “Maybe tactically, they’re doing it as an extension of the PR campaign. With a public figure in New York, if there’s no actual malice and if the statement is substantially true, you can’t prove defamation.”

Lovell strongly disagreed, saying that if additional Baldoni and Lively texts “showed a different narrative” that the publication wilfully ignored, “that, by definition, is actual malice. If this thing really went sideways, then yes, there is big exposure for The New York Times.”

Now that Baldoni has sued Lively directly, Lovell predicted that public sympathy for the actor will continue to rise, especially if he and his lawyer continue to “shift the narrative” of who has been harmed the most in this ongoing war of words.

“I don’t think it’s really about the litigation. If she’s being harassed, what is her damage?” Lovell asked. “She may have got pissed off a few times, but I didn’t see anything that may rise to the level of sexual harassment.”

He continued: “I’m not trying to demean harassment claims at all. They’ve got to be  taken seriously. But she seems to have gotten the better of him,” he said, referencing newly released audio from Baldoni in which the actor says he “literally was sent to the basement with all my friends and family for over an hour because I wasn’t allowed to be seen” at the film’s August 2024 premiere. 

“He’s the one that’s in the basement with his family for an hour, because she won’t let him go with the cast on one of these marketing things,” Lovell said. “She’s the power player.”

While public sympathy was firmly in Lively’s camp three weeks ago, Baldoni’s team is busy trying to convince the public and the industry that, as someone arguably less famous and less powerful, Baldoni can’t possibly be at fault.

Page characterized Freedman’s messaging as, “Justin is this really good dude, and he’s been bullied, and Ryan Reynolds yelled at him and Blake is just a mean girl.” 

Can either star recover at this point? According to Business Insider, the public mudslinging has soured the public on both Lively and Baldoni, with negative posts about each outdistancing supportive ones.

“The PR campaign looks to be a stalemate at this point, and both may have damaged their careers for a number of reasons,” Dowlatshahi said. “The allegations against both — harassment by Baldoni and insensitivity towards domestic violence by Lively — are certainly damaging and seem to be supported in part.”

Page doesn’t “see any winners here, but this tennis match is far from over. Public litigation seems an awfully expensive way to get the media narrative on your side and at this point, I think the public is just confused.”

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