Newly disclosed text messages between Justin Baldoni and Rainn Wilson are adding fresh detail to the intensifying legal dispute between Baldoni and Blake Lively over the production of the film It Ends With Us. The messages, filed in court as part of Baldoni’s effort to fend off Lively’s lawsuit, show Wilson telling his friend he had been “set up and ambushed and personally attacked” after a tense meeting with Lively and her husband, Ryan Reynolds.
According to the exhibits, the exchange comes from a January 2024 group chat that included Baldoni, Wilson, producer Jamey Heath and others. Baldoni describes “one of the hardest nights of my life” at the couple’s New York apartment, where he says Reynolds read from a phone a list of his alleged misbehavior on set, including accusations that his conduct had been “creepy” and “abusive.” Baldoni wrote that Reynolds spoke to him “like a five-year-old,” urged him to apologize, and left him feeling “emotionally paralyzed,” unable to deliver the words others had drafted for him.
In replies that Baldoni’s team has now placed before the court, Wilson expresses shock, calls the encounter a setup, and compares Baldoni’s stunned reaction to a “deer in the headlights.” He praises Heath for stepping in “diplomatically” and urges Baldoni to move forward by focusing on making “important and entertaining” work. The texts also reflect a longstanding friendship between the two actors, rooted in shared Baháʼí faith and past creative collaborations, which Baldoni’s filing uses to frame Wilson’s comments as those of a close confidant witnessing a painful episode.
The messages surface against a broader legal backdrop that stretches back to December 2024, when Lively filed a complaint with California’s civil rights agency accusing Baldoni of sexual harassment, boundary violations and a retaliatory smear campaign. She later brought a federal lawsuit in New York, seeking more than $160 million in damages. Baldoni has denied wrongdoing, arguing in court papers that his conduct has been mischaracterized and that disagreements on set were twisted into allegations of abuse.
Baldoni responded with a $400 million countersuit accusing Lively, Reynolds and their publicist of civil extortion and defamation, but a judge dismissed that case in June 2025, along with a separate defamation claim against a newspaper. He did not file an amended complaint by the court’s deadline, closing off that line of attack. Lively’s lawsuit, which also names members of Baldoni’s team, is scheduled for trial in March 2026, while Baldoni has asked the judge to rule in his favor without a jury hearing the case.
Filings from Lively’s side describe the New York meeting and a follow-up “all-hands” session on set as attempts to impose clearer boundaries, including requirements for an intimacy coordinator and an end to improvised physical contact and personal comments about her appearance or private life. Baldoni’s texts to Wilson present the same events as an unjust confrontation and the “wrath of an angry husband.” The contrasting accounts underscore how central questions about power, consent and credibility will be when the case finally reaches a courtroom.
