Los Angeles, Jan 31 (IANS): Director Hollywood couple Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds are trying to silence actor-director Justin Baldoni, who has been accused of sexual harassment by Blake.
Blake and Ryan Reynolds told a federal judge that they will seek to dismiss the defamation lawsuit filed by Justin Baldoni, reports ‘Variety’.
Attorneys for the two sides are due in court Monday for the first hearing on the feud between the two ‘It Ends With Us’ co-stars.
As per ‘Variety’, Lively has accused Baldoni, who was also the film’s director, of sexually harassing her on set, and then retaliating with a smear campaign when she dared to speak up about it.
Baldoni and his publicists have countered that Lively defamed them by taking text messages out of context and mischaracterizing their interactions. Baldoni also alleges that Lively and Reynolds pressured WME to drop him as a client, which WME denies.
The couple’s attorneys filed the notice Thursday in compliance with Judge Lewis Liman’s order, which set out how the federal case will move forward. The judge asked for a letter that would “indicate in one sentence the Defendant’s intent to make a motion to dismiss”.
Liman will set a deadline later to actually file the motion. “The Lively-Reynolds Parties intend to move to dismiss Plaintiffs’ complaint”, said Michael J. Gottlieb, following the judge’s instruction to keep it short and sweet. Publicist Leslie Sloane, who was also named as a defendant in Baldoni’s suit, filed a similar notice.
The judge has said he expects to schedule a trial for March 2026, and asked the parties to file a plan that would allow for a trial by that date. In a rare moment of agreement, attorneys on both sides have also indicated they have no objection to consolidating the two federal cases into one proceeding.
At the hearing on Monday, the two sides are expected to argue about the conduct of Baldoni’s lawyer, Bryan Freedman. Lively’s lawyers have argued that Freedman is making prejudicial comments in the press, which they say taints the jury pool. Freedman has countered that he has every right to defend his client publicly from Lively’s media blitz.