Justin Baldoni reflected on his “painful” legal dispute with Blake Lively on Wednesday, saying “gratitude” helped him through the public controversy.
In a video message posted to Instagram alongside his wife, Emily Baldoni, the “It Ends With Us” director and star explained why they had not spoken publicly “for the better part of the last two years.”
“It’s not because we haven’t had anything to say,” he said. “Because lord knows we have, but it just felt like every time we went to make a video like this, we wanted to speak, something was telling us not to. It just didn’t feel like the right time, and we were talking about it and feeling into it and praying about it.”
While Justin did not mention Lively’s name directly, he did allude to the legal drama tied to their time working together on 2024’s “It Ends With Us.”
While both Justin and Emily expressed gratitude for “so many people and so many things that have happened to us,” the director’s wife noted that this gratefulness did not “negate the injustice and the pain that we have also felt in the last few years.”
“We’ve had to wrestle with so many things and try to understand so many things, like how could something like this even happen,” she added. “Let alone disguised as a fight for women. So much to unpack.”
Though Justin was uncertain whether “this [was] the right thing to say,” he noted that they felt like they needed “to share something.”
“What I will say is that there have been so many painful things that have been spoken into existence over the last couple of years,” he went on. “That created so much noise, and we didn’t want to add to the noise. So we just wanted to let the justice system run its course.”
Meanwhile, Emily maintained that “the truth and the facts have spoken for themselves.” Justin appeared to echo this sentiment, adding that they were “healing” following the legal dispute.
“If you’ve ever been through something traumatic, you know that healing isn’t linear,” he said. “It looks different every day. We have had to rethink for ourselves what is real, and what matters. It’s this. It’s our family, it’s our friends, it’s our community, who have been there for us, it’s our faith.”
Watch the full video statement below. A representative for Lively did not immediately respond to TheWrap’s request for comment.
The couple’s statement came two months after Baldoni and Lively reached a settlement in May, mere weeks before their case was set to go to trial. The settlement followed Judge Lewis Liman’s decision to toss out 10 of the 13 claims from Lively’s December 2024 lawsuit, first published in the New York Times.
Liman later ruled that Lively was entitled to compensation for her defense costs thanks to the Protecting Survivors From Weaponized Defamation Lawsuits Act, with the actress, in turn, seeking more than $8 million in attorneys’ fees and other legal costs.
Nonetheless, the May settlement brought an end to the pair’s nearly two-year long battle, which came about when Lively accused Baldoni of sexual harassment during the production of their 2024 film ,“It Ends With Us,” in a lawsuit filed in December 2024. She also alleged that after she raised concerns, Baldoni and his team of publicists launched a coordinated digital smear campaign in retaliation, which she said impacted her financially and professionally.
Baldoni then filed a $400 million countersuit against Lively, her husband Ryan Reynolds and others, alleging defamation, extortion and additional claims. A judge dismissed Baldoni’s case in June 2025, however.
“The end product – the movie ‘It Ends With Us’ – is a source of pride to all of us who worked to bring it to life,” representatives for both parties said in a joint statement in May. “Raising awareness, and making a meaningful impact in the lives of domestic violence survivors – and all survivors – is a goal that we stand behind. We acknowledge the process presented challenges and recognize concerns raised by Ms. Lively deserved to be heard. “
The statement added: “We remain firmly committed to workplaces free of improprieties and unproductive environments. It is our sincere hope that this brings closure and allows all involved to move forward constructively and in peace, including a respectful environment online.”
