Going forward with a hundred million dollar lawsuit isn't easy, at least not for Justin Baldoni.
The Jane the Virgin actor is gearing up for a legal battle against both Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds as well as the New York Times, respectively, over allegations made by the former and reported by the latter pertaining to his behavior on the set of It Ends With Us, which he directed.
He is suing the newspaper for a whopping $250 million for alleged defamation, while he is suing the Hollywood couple for $400 million, also for allegedly causing harm to his career and reputation over their claims.
And though a trial hasn't even come close to starting — it is currently set for next year — the process is already apparently devastating Justin's finances. (He has a reported net worth of $4 or $6 million).
During a pre-trial conference on Monday, February 3 to address Blake's request for a gag order for Justin and his lawyer, Bryan Freedman, the latter revealed that his clients, which include Justin as well as It Ends With Us producers Jamey Heath and Steve Sarowitz, their production company Wayfarer Studios, and publicists Melissa Nathan and Jennifer Abel, who allegedly ran a smear campaign against Blake, have been "devastated financially and emotionally."
Justin's lawyer is known for helping a variety of A-list stars through a myriad of legal needs, including Don Lemon and Tucker Carlson following their firings from their respective networks, Chris Harrison, The Bachelor franchise's former host of twenty years, when he parted ways with Bachelor Nation after a racist incident with former contestant Rachel Lindsay, and others such as Julia Roberts, Quentin Tarantino, Mariah Carey, Gabrielle Union, and Seth Rogen.
Per People, he further shared during the pre-trial conference: "Not to sound like a four-year-old fighting a four-year-old with 'they started it,' but in these kinds of cases, once someone says something it becomes fact: there's no way to fight against it."
Justin is pulling all the stops in his pricey lawsuit, including the recent publication of a website dedicated to exposing the supposed truth about what happened on the set. Titled "Lawsuit Info," it includes two PDFs, one of them titled "Amended Complaint," which shares details of his lawsuit.
The other is titled "Timeline of Relevant Events," and it includes a timeline of events from when Justin first emailed author Colleen Hoover about adapting It Ends With Us, in January 2019, to last month, when the lawsuit was filed against the NYT, which accuses them of conspiring with Blake and Ryan "for months" to prepare an exposé.
The "Timeline of Events" PDF, which is over 168 pages, also includes several alleged conversations between Justin, Blake and Ryan, plus their respective teams.
It also features several text chains, apparently between Blake and Justin, as well as between Ryan and Justin, prior to filming the movie, in which they express "their mutual respect for each other."
It Ends With Us also featured Brandon Sklenar, Jenny Slate, Isabella Ferrer and Hasan Minhaj, most of whom had distanced themselves from Justin prior to the legal drama unfolding.