The It Ends With Us case ended on privilege and employment status, not on the facts

Nothing in the litigation over It Ends With Us was ever tried. The rulings that ended it were about who may sue for what, and they are routinely reported as findings about who was telling the truth. They are not.

The film, directed by Justin Baldoni, produced by and starring Blake Lively, made for about 25 million dollars by Wayfarer Studios and released through Sony on 9 August 2024, opened to about 50 million dollars in the United States and took roughly 351 million dollars worldwide. On 20 December 2024 Lively filed a complaint with the California Civil Rights Department alleging a hostile work environment and retaliation. On 21 December 2024 the New York Times published an investigation into an alleged campaign against her reputation. On 31 December 2024 she filed suit in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York. On 16 January 2025 Baldoni countersued Lively, Ryan Reynolds, publicist Leslie Sloane and Sloane's firm for 400 million dollars, alleging civil extortion, defamation and invasion of privacy, consolidating into that action claims he had brought against the New York Times for 250 million dollars.

In June 2025 Judge Lewis J. Liman dismissed the countersuit. PBS NewsHour reported on 10 June 2025 that he held allegations made within a lawsuit to be legally protected against a defamation claim, and that the conduct alleged, Lively taking creative control of the film, did not amount to extortion under California law. The claims against the newspaper failed on a different ground, that Baldoni had not shown actual malice, the standard a public figure must meet. Liman left open the possibility of a repleaded contract and interference claim.

That is a ruling about litigation privilege. It does not say the allegations in Lively's complaint were true, and it does not say they were false. It says a person cannot be sued for defamation over what they said in a court filing.

On 2 April 2026 Liman dismissed 10 of Lively's 13 claims, including her sexual harassment claim, and removed Baldoni and individual associates from the case. The holding that carries the most weight and is understood the least is that she could not bring the federal employment discrimination claim because she was engaged as an independent contractor rather than an employee. Federal workplace harassment law protects employees. A person who contracts to perform is, on that reasoning, outside the statute, whatever happened on set. The court also observed that creative artists, no less than comedy room writers, must have some amount of space to experiment within an agreed script.

Again, that is a holding about coverage, not about conduct. It answers the question of which law applies to a film set, and the answer it gives, that a lead actor engaged as a contractor cannot use the federal harassment statute, has consequences well beyond this dispute.

On 4 May 2026, about two weeks before trial was due to begin, the parties settled and Lively voluntarily dismissed her remaining retaliation and contract claims. The terms became public on 15 June 2026 and record no financial payout, with all parties waiving future litigation arising from the dispute. In June 2026 Liman refused Lively's application for punitive and treble damages, reportedly describing it as an end run around a jury trial, while allowing her to recover reasonable attorneys' fees from Wayfarer Studios for defending the dismissed defamation counterclaim.

A settlement with no money changing hands and a fees award confined to one dismissed counterclaim is an unusual ending, and it is the closest thing to a scorecard the case produced. It is not a finding. No jury heard evidence. No court made a determination about whether the conduct alleged on the set occurred.

Sources opened for this report do not agree on every detail of the sequence. One citation attaches an Associated Press headline about the dismissal of Baldoni's countersuit to the date of the April 2026 ruling, which concerned Lively's claims, and reporting on the June 2025 order variously emphasises the privilege ground and the actual malice ground, which applied to different defendants within the one action. Where accounts diverge, this report has stated only what is common to them.

What remains unknown is whether the settlement contains unpublished obligations beyond the mutual waiver, what quantum of fees Wayfarer will ultimately pay, and whether the independent contractor holding of 2 April 2026 will be treated as persuasive by other courts. That last question is the one with a life beyond this film.