Blake Lively awarded $400,000 in legal costs

NEW YORK

Lively is entitled to $363,245 in attorneys’ fees and $44,206 in costs.

Blake Lively will get just over $400,000 of the $8 million she sought in legal costs from actor and director Justin Baldoni after they settled their fight over the production of their 2024 film “It Ends With Us,” a federal judge ruled on Aug. 26.

Judge Lewis J. Liman explained in a written decision in Manhattan why Lively was not entitled to the full amount that her lawyers claim was spent after Baldoni and his production company, Wayfarer Studios LLC, filed their own claims in response to her December 2024 lawsuit. Acknowledging Lively and Baldoni had “waged fierce battle against each other in court,” the judge denied Lively the bulk of legal fees she sought, citing the limits of a California law designed to protect survivors of sexual harassment and discrimination from retaliatory lawsuits.

The law meant to protect sex abuse survivors from legal actions designed to intimidate and silence victims could only be construed to let her be reimbursed for what she paid lawyers to defend against defamation claims rather than all claims Baldoni made against her, Liman wrote. Thus, the judge ruled, Lively is entitled to $363,245 in attorneys’ fees and $44,206 in costs.

In her lawsuit, Lively asserted that she had been subjected to sexual harassment, retaliation and breach of contract.