Blake Lively just scored a major win in her ongoing legal battle with her “It Ends With Us” co-star and director, Justin Baldoni.
Page Six can confirm that the federal judge presiding over the case granted on Friday the actress’ motion to strike her deposition transcript from the docket.
Last week, Lively was deposed at her attorney’s office in New York City, where Baldoni’s lawyers probed her on the sexual harassment claims she made about their client in her federal lawsuit. They also pressed her on the allegations that the director launched a smear campaign against her.
Baldoni, 41, was present for the deposition.
Lively’s lawyers argued in the aforementioned motion that attorneys for the actor and his Wayfarer Studios company, which produced the former co-stars’ 2024 film, uploaded the “Gossip Girl” alum’s deposition to the public docket with “no plausible legal reason to do so” except “as fodder for the Wayfarer Defendants’ media campaign.”
Judge Lewis J. Liman agreed, ruling on Friday, “The Wayfarer Parties’ attachment of the entire, nearly 300-page deposition — after citing only two pages of it in the Letter — served no proper litigation purpose and instead appears to have been intended to burden Lively (and as a result, the Court) and to invite public speculation and scandal.”
Liman went on to say that “the Wayfarer Parties have not even attempted to argue that the entire deposition was relevant. Nor could they.”
Liman also called out the “gratuitous amounts of irrelevant pages” filed, noting that if Lively, 37, were to request that those be sealed as well, the Wayfarer Parties could then use her response “for their own public-relations purposes.”
He stressed that “the Court has not only the power but also the responsibility to step in.”
Reps for Baldoni did not immediately respond to Page Six’s request for comment.
Lively is suing Baldoni for allegedly sexually harassing her on the set of “It Ends With Us.” She’s also suing his publicists for allegedly orchestrating a subsequent smear campaign against her.
Baldoni, who has denied the allegations, countersued Lively and her husband, Ryan Reynolds, for defamation and extortion. However, his suit was tossed out in June.
Lively and Baldoni are expected to testify when her case is tried in March 2026.
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