Topline
Actor Ryan Reynolds reportedly has no regrets about getting involved in his wife Blake Lively’s feud with “It Ends With Us” co-star and director Justin Baldoni, and instead “feels like he wasn’t angry enough” about her on-set experience, according to a new statement from a Reynolds spokesperson.
Ryan Reynolds and Blake Lively on April 27, 2025 in New York City.
GC Images
Key Facts
In the statement, the unnamed spokesperson said, “Yes Ryan got involved—what husband wouldn’t support his wife and the mother of his children? He saw his wife fighting daily to stand up against sexual harassment in a private and respectful way, only to face retaliation for doing so.”
The statement, published by Puck News late Tuesday, is the first time Reynolds or anyone from his team has spoken about Lively’s ongoing sexual harassment lawsuit against Baldoni since a wide-reaching data dump last week unsealed text messages, emails and depositions from Hollywood A-listers and “It Ends With Us” studio executives.
The documents, released as evidence in Lively’s lawsuit against Baldoni, included proof Reynolds worked behind the scenes to encourage his famous friends to support “It Ends With Us” and reinforce his wife’s claims that Baldoni behaved inappropriately on set.
In a message to Matt Damon and his wife, Luciana, Reynolds claimed “It Ends With Us” was “one of the all time zingers on and off set” and said “one day, we’ll make a movie about the movie.”
Renyolds told the Damons that Baldoni asked Lively’s trainer “how much do you think Blake will weigh in two weeks?” shortly after she gave birth, and slammed Baldoni as a “sociopathic FAUXminist with al most [sic] no sense of boundaries or shame.”
In an unsealed email to “It Ends With Us” author Colleen Hoover, Reyolds suggested her sickness with a stomach bug was the result of “your body ridding itself of any residual Baldoni” and later told her that Baldoni had hired a crisis PR team to attack Lively online (a claim she later repeated in a federal lawsuit).
After documents were unsealed last week, Baldoni’s lawyer Bryan Freedman said the evidence “does not support [Lively’s] claims as a matter of law,” claiming “a simple read of the newly released message exchanges make the truth abundantly clear.”
Get Forbes Breaking News Text Alerts: We’re launching text message alerts so you’ll always know the biggest stories shaping the day’s headlines. Text “Alerts” to (201) 335-0739 or sign up here: joinsubtext.com/forbes.
Unnamed Spokesperson Speaks For Ryan Reynolds
“Yes Ryan got involved—what husband wouldn’t support his wife and the mother of his children? He saw his wife fighting daily to stand up against sexual harassment in a private and respectful way, only to face retaliation for doing so. If anything, Ryan feels like he wasn’t angry enough. He passionately believes in and will stand up for the basic right to a safe workplace free of harassment and retaliation for his wife and others. Then, now, and always,” the spokesperson told Puck News.
Ryan Reynolds Pens Scathing Letter To Colleen Hoover
A cringe-worthy email Reynolds sent to Hoover one day after the premiere of “It Ends With Us” was included in the unsealed evidence and has been slammed by fans online as a “masterclass in psychological manipulation.” The dramatic letter made reference to “strange people with muddled intentions” surrounding the film and praised Lively and Hoover for making “something gorgeous out of ingredients you didn’t ask for.” He told Hoover he’d “rather be puking in a gulag than hijacking performative feminism while practicing personal growth catchphrases in the mirror” in a dig at Baldoni, and later said negative online sentiment about the movie and Lively was the result of a behind-the-scenes war waged by Baldoni. Hoover responded she “had a feeling this was Justin’s team controlling the online narrative.”
Blake Lively’s Texts With Taylor Swift Unsealed
Text messages between Lively and longtime friend Taylor Swift showed the pair’s relationship became strained amid the drama on the set of “It Ends With Us,” and proved Swift was aware of Lively’s claims against Baldoni before she filed any legal action against him. The texts start with Lively reaching out to Swift to check on their friendship, calling Swift “the key person there for me” during her “It Ends With Us” experience. Swift admitted to feeling “distanced” from Lively. The next day, Swift reached back out to Lively in a message calling Baldoni a “bitch” and speculating he “knows something is coming.” The texts are dated December 2024, the same month Lively filed a complaint with the California Civil Rights Department against Baldoni alleging sexual harassment.
Studio Execs Called Justin Baldoni A ‘moron’ On Press Tour
An unsealed email allegedly from Danni Maggin, a senior marketing executive at Sony Pictures Entertainment, reportedly called Baldoni a “moron” for the way he talked about sexual assault in an interview with the Dallas Morning News. “Justin is basically alluding to ‘raping’ Atlas out of Lily,” Maggin wrote. “We cut the tape but he is a moron.” Maggin also included an alleged quote from Baldoni’s interview in which he discusses his character, Ryle, assaulting Lively’s character, Lily. “For me what that scene was more about was Ryle feeling like he had lost all power and feeling so insecure and jealous that the only way in his mind that he could show her how much he loved her was um and I won’t say the word that we used in developing it, but what was essentially to force any love she had for Atlas out of her,” he allegedly said. “So Ryle’s motivation, if you’re talking about character motivation, or why he did what he did, from the filmmaking perspective and from the actor perspective, was um he was trying to, in his twisted mind, love… Atlas out of her. There’s another word we used and I’m sure in your imagination you can go there.”
Key Background
After months of rumors of a rift between Baldoni and the rest of the “It Ends With Us” cast, Lively in December 2024 filed a complaint with the California Civil Rights Department alleging sexual harassment and other inappropriate behavior on the film’s set. Days later, the New York Times published a bombshell piece headlined “We Can Bury Anyone: Inside a Hollywood Smear Machine” detailing her claims. The next week, Lively filed a federal lawsuit against Baldoni, his publicist, Wayfarer Studios and other defendants for “retaliating against her for reporting sexual harassment and workplace safety concerns.” Baldoni quickly filed a countersuit and sued the New York Times for its reporting on Lively’s allegations, claiming he was falsely accused of sexual harassment and was used as a “scapegoat” to dodge the negative press surrounding the film. Both of Baldoni’s lawsuits were dismissed in June. (Here is an in-depth timeline of the saga, and explanations of Lively’s initial claims and Baldoni’s claims.)