1987-present
Blake Lively News: It Ends with Us Star Sues Justin Baldoni for Sexual Harassment
Blake Lively is suing It Ends with Us co-star and director Justin Baldoni for sexual harassment. The 37-year-old actor filed a lawsuit in New York federal court on December 31 accusing Baldoni of sexual misconduct and orchestrating a “smear campaign” to destroy her reputation for speaking up about her treatment on the set of the film.
In the lawsuit, Lively says she was subjected to “repeated sexual harassment and other disturbing behavior” by Baldoni and producer Jamey Heath. She claims Baldoni asked her personal questions about her sex life with husband Ryan Reynolds, added a graphic sex scene to the script without her consent, and referred to women on set as “sexy.”
She also alleges that both Baldoni and Heath entered her hair and makeup trailer unannounced, made several inappropriate comments to her about sex, and pressured her to simulate nudity that wasn’t included in the script. The lawsuit says Lively had previously expressed concerns about filming sex scenes without an intimacy coordinator present.
Additionally, the actor accuses Baldoni, his public relations team, and the film’s production company Wayfarer Studios of engaging in “a carefully crafted, coordinated, and resourced retaliatory scheme to silence her” and “destroy” her reputation, which allegedly included a proposal to plant negative stories about her online.
The suit comes just weeks after Lively filed a civil rights complaint in California against Baldoni, which was reported by The New York Times. In response, a lawyer for Baldoni and Wayfarer Studios called the allegations “completely false, outrageous and intentionally salacious.” Baldoni then sued the publication for libel, claiming the article was “rife with inaccuracies, misrepresentations, and omissions” based on her allegedly “self-serving narrative.” Lively and Baldoni filed their lawsuits within hours of each other.
Who Is Blake Lively?
Actor Blake Lively starred in the hit TV show Gossip Girl and has appeared in the movies The Age of Adaline, The Town, and It Ends with Us. Born into a showbiz family, she first stepped into the spotlight during her junior year of high school when she landed a major role in the 2005 blockbuster The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants. Two years later, Lively landed her most famous role to date on the CW’s hit teen drama Gossip Girl. Since Gossip Girl ended in 2012, Lively has starred in movies such as The Age of Adaline, The Shallows, and A Simple Favor. She is married to fellow actor Ryan Reynolds, with whom she has four kids.
Quick Facts
NAME: Blake Lively
BORN: August 25, 1987
BIRTHPLACE: Los Angeles, California
SPOUSE: Ryan Reynolds (2012-present)
CHILDREN: James, Inez, Betty, and Olin
ASTROLOGICAL SIGN: Virgo
Early Life
Blake Lively was born on August 25, 1987, in Los Angeles to a show business family. Her father, Ernie, was an actor and director, and her mother, Elaine, was a talent scout. Lively is the youngest of five children, and all four of her older siblings are also actors.
Before moving to Los Angeles to pursue their show business careers, Lively’s parents lived in Georgia, and the household always maintained its Southern influences. “I have a tight-knit Southern family,” she says. “So whenever I tell people I’m from L.A., they say, ‘Yeah, but you don’t count,’ I guess because of the Southern values I was raised with, and the way I eat—the more sugary and cheesy and fried, the better.”
Lively began the first grade when she was only 3 years old. Her 6-year-old brother was so nervous about beginning first grade alone that her mother told the school that Blake (who was extremely tall for her age) was also 6 years old so that she could accompany him. “After a few weeks,” Lively remembers, “they said they would have to put me in mentally disabled classes because I wasn’t up to pace with the rest of the kids. They thought that I was slow because all I wanted to do was sleep while the other kids were doing their projects.”
After getting that early, if perhaps ill-advised, jump on her primary education, Lively attended a staggering 13 different schools by the time she graduated from grade school. She finally settled at Burbank High School, where she stood out in both her academics and her extracurricular activities. Besides receiving stellar grades in her AP coursework, Lively was a cheerleader, class president, and member of her school’s show choir.
Movies and TV Shows
Despite strong pressure from her older siblings to ditch school and embark on an acting career, Lively initially expressed no interest in acting. Instead, she had her own dreams of attending Stanford University. Nevertheless, sensing her star potential, her older brother Eric relentlessly pushed her to try auditioning. “He was trying to get me to make life decisions at 15!” she recalls. He then began contacting agents and telling them about his beautiful, talented younger sister. “I was really busy at school,” Lively remembers, “and I would have these agents calling and saying, ‘We have an appointment for you.’ It was really hard to say no, because I didn’t want to make my brother upset.”
The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants
During her junior year of high school, at the age of 17, Lively finally consented to attend a few auditions. She found nearly instant success. After only a few months of auditioning, she landed a major role in the 2005 blockbuster The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, which filmed during the summer between her junior and senior years at Burbank High. Her performance earned her a Teen Choice Award nomination for Breakout Movie Star.
After filming Traveling Pants, Lively returned to Burbank for her senior year and graduated in 2005. After finishing her diploma, she immediately returned to acting, starring opposite Justin Long and Jonah Hill in the 2006 comedy Accepted.
Gossip Girl
A year later, in 2007, Lively landed her most famous role to date on the CW’s hit teen drama Gossip Girl. The show follows a cohort of privileged teenagers on New York City’s Upper East Side, with Lively playing the lead role of Serena van der Woodsen, a stylish blonde and somewhat reformed party girl.
Bolstered by intense media coverage, including a provocative and controversial photoshoot in Rolling Stone magazine, Gossip Girl quickly developed a cult-like fan base. Its young and beautiful cast became nearly ubiquitous on celebrity magazine covers and websites. The fashion-forward show, and Lively’s character in particular, also had enormous influence over style trends. In a case of onscreen romance breeding real-life love, in 2007, Lively began dating Gossip Girl co-star Penn Badgley, who played her character’s on-again, off-again flame, Dan Humphrey. However, Lively and Badgely broke up in 2010.
Lively won the 2008 Teen Choice Award for TV Actress and TV Breakout Star for her performance. Gossip Girl aired its final episode in December 2012.
The Town
With her dazzling good looks, natural acting talent, and devoted backing from Gossip Girl fans, Lively seemed to be on the verge of breaking out as a top-flight movie star. In a January 2010 profile, Esquire called Lively “the most promising and interesting and talented young actress of the year.” She displayed a grittier side in her role as a young mother in Ben Affleck’s crime thriller The Town that same year. Both the movie and Lively’s performance drew widespread critical acclaim.
Green Lantern
The following year, Lively co-starred with Ryan Reynolds in the film Green Lantern, a big-screen take on the classic comic book series. While the movie proved to be a critical and commercial disappointment, the onscreen pairing of Lively and Reynolds translated into a real-life romance.
The Age of Adaline and A Simple Favor
In 2015, Lively starred in the romantic fantasy The Age of Adaline, in which she played a woman who, as a result of a freak accident, hasn’t aged beyond 29 years. She went on to headline the horror shark film The Shallows (2016), before playing a woman who disappears without an explanation in Paul Feig’s 2017 comedy-thriller, A Simple Favor, opposite Anna Kendrick. Lively then took on the role of bereaved assassin in the 2020 action drama The Rhythm Section.
It Ends with Us
Lively returned to the big screen in 2024 for a trio of roles. The first was the animated fantasy comedy IF, voicing a cat dressed as an octopus. She then made a brief cameo appearance in Deadpool & Wolverine, as Lady Deadpool. Her husband, Ryan Reynolds, played the titular Deadpool.
Most notably for 2024, Lively starred in the romantic drama It Ends with Us. Based on the Colleen Hoover book of the same name, she portrayed Lily Bloom, a woman in a relationship with an abusive husband, played by the film’s director, Justin Baldoni. Just months after the movie premiered in theaters, Lively accused Baldoni of sexual harassment during filming; she filed a lawsuit against him in December 2024.
Husband Ryan Reynolds and Kids
After they started dating in 2011, Lively and fellow actor Ryan Reynolds quickly became inseparable. They bought a home together in upstate New York in April 2012. Managing to keep their plans hidden from the media, the pair married in a special ceremony on September 9, 2012, near Charleston, South Carolina. About 70 guests attended the couple’s nuptials held at Boone Hall Plantation. Lively’s friend, singer Florence Welch of Florence and the Machine, performed at the reception. Before dating and marrying Reynolds, she had been previously linked to actor Leonardo DiCaprio.
Reynolds and Lively have four children. They welcomed their first child, a daughter they names James, in December 2014. In September 2016, the couple celebrated the birth of their second daughter, Inez. In 2019, Lively gave birth to their third daughter, Betty. The news broke early that October, but Us Weekly reported Betty was born in the summer.
Keeping personal matters under wraps once again, Lively subtly announced the arrival of the couple’s fourth child in a February 2023 Instagram post when she was visibly no longer pregnant. In July 2024, they revealed their youngest kid is a son named Olin.
Net Worth
Lively is reportedly worth $30 million as of June 2024, according to Celebrity Net Worth. In addition to the paychecks she earns from acting, Lively has built wealth through a handful of companies. In September 2021, she founded Betty Buzz, a soda and sparkling beverage company geared toward people not drinking alcohol. Lively then expanded via a sibling brand, Betty Booze, which sells canned cocktails. The actor-turned-entrepreneur then started a hair care product line called Blake Brown in 2024. The name is partially inspired by her father’s original surname, Brown.
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Catherine Caruso joined the Biography.com staff in August 2024, having previously worked as a freelance journalist for several years. She is a graduate of Syracuse University, where she studied English literature. When she’s not working on a new story, you can find her reading, hitting the gym, or watching too much TV.
