NYT Responds to Lawsuit Allegations
2/1 – 1:32 PM PT – A spokesperson for The New York Times has addressed the claims made in Justin Baldoni’s lawsuit, telling TMZ, “The Baldoni/Wayfarer legal filings are rife with inaccuracies about The New York Times, including, for example, the bogus claim that The Times had early access to Ms. Lively’s state civil rights complaint. Mr. Baldoni’s lawyers base their erroneous claim on postings by amateur internet sleuths, who, not surprisingly, are wrong.”
The spokesperson added, “The sleuths have noted that a version of the Lively state complaint published by The Times carries the date ‘December 10’ even though the complaint wasn’t filed until more than a week later. The problem: that date is generated by Google software and is unrelated to the date when The Times received it and posted it. A look at the metadata from the posted document correctly shows it was posted after Ms. Lively filed it with the California Civil Rights Department.”
Justin Baldoni Uncovers Alleged Pre-Lawsuit Smear Campaign
Justin Baldoni now claims to have “cold hard proof” that Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds had been working against him for months before she filed her Christmas lawsuit. As a result, he has amended his lawsuit against them to reflect this new information.
New Metadata Evidence Against The New York Times
According to new legal documents obtained by TMZ, Baldoni’s team asserts that the alleged defamation against him began as early as October 31, 2024. This claim is based on metadata embedded in The New York Times article about Lively’s lawsuit.
Observers of the article allegedly found that “viewing the HTML source code for the article revealed references to a ‘message-embed-generator’ that referred to a date of ‘2024-10-31.’” Baldoni’s legal team argues that this proves The Times had already been preparing the article by this date, including the development of a tool to display text messages that were central to Lively’s lawsuit.
Legal Implications of the Metadata Discovery
Baldoni’s team claims this evidence is significant because it allegedly “strips away the legal shields that Lively, the Times, and other Lively Parties were likely relying on to protect their malicious acts of defamation.”
As previously reported, Baldoni is suing The New York Times for $250 million, separate from his $400 million lawsuit against Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds. He alleges that The Times selectively edited and manipulated text messages in its article and colluded with Lively to attack his reputation.
Attorney Bryan Freedman’s Statement
Justin’s attorney, Bryan Freedman, issued a statement to TMZ:
“The decision to amend our lawsuit was a logical next step due to the overwhelming amount of new proof that has come to light. This fresh evidence corroborates what we knew all along—that due to purely egotistical reasons, Ms. Lively and her entire team colluded for months to destroy reputations through a complex web of lies, false accusations, and the manipulation of illicitly received communications.”
Freedman added, “The ongoing public interest in this case online has ironically shed light on the undeniable facts pertaining to The New York Times and how heavily Ms. Lively and her representatives were not only deeply involved in the attempted takedown and smear campaign of Mr. Baldoni, Wayfarer Studios, and their teams, but that they themselves initiated it.”
Detailed Timeline of Alleged Smear Campaign
The amended lawsuit includes an extensive 150-page timeline detailing Lively’s alleged campaign to undermine Baldoni. The timeline traces events back to January 1, 2019, when Baldoni first contacted author Colleen Hoover about adapting It Ends With Us, and meticulously follows each development through January 29, 2025.
Blake Lively’s Response Pending
TMZ has reached out to Blake Lively’s representatives for comment, but so far, there has been no response. Given the ongoing nature of this legal battle, her team is expected to issue a statement soon.
