Baldoni’s Wayfarer Ordered to Pay NYT $171K in Failed Defamation Suit
The ruling stems from Wayfarer's failed defamation claim over the paper's reporting on Blake Lively's harassment allegations tied to "It Ends With Us."
Justin Baldoni’s production company, Wayfarer Studios, has been ordered to pay The New York Times more than $171,000 in damages after a New York judge ruled against the company’s failed defamation lawsuit targeting the newspaper.
New York Supreme Court Justice Gerald Lebovits issued the ruling Monday, siding with The Times after Wayfarer sued the paper over its December 2024 investigation into the production of “It Ends With Us,” which detailed actress Blake Lively’s allegations of sexual harassment and retaliation against her director and co-star.
The Times was pulled into Wayfarer’s defamation suit in January 2025, but U.S. District Judge Lewis J. Liman dismissed the claims against the paper by that June. The Times then filed its own action to recover legal costs under New York’s anti-SLAPP statute, which protects media organizations and others from retaliatory lawsuits designed to suppress reporting or speech on matters of public concern. A spokesperson for the paper said the ruling affirmed exactly the kind of baseless litigation the statute exists to deter. Lebovits also denied a cross-motion from Wayfarer seeking a stay in the case.
The ruling adds another chapter to a legal saga that has stretched on well after Lively and Baldoni reached a settlement in May, just weeks before their case was set to go to trial. That settlement, however, didn’t fully close the matter: Lively filed a motion in June seeking more than $8 million in attorneys’ fees and other costs from Baldoni and Wayfarer, a request Baldoni’s team has disputed as excessive, citing the far smaller sum the Times secured in its own fee request as a benchmark. A judge has yet to rule on that request.
Baldoni and his wife, Emily, addressed the broader legal battle publicly for the first time in early July, describing the experience in an Instagram video as painful and something they were still working through as a family. Representatives for Baldoni did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Monday’s ruling.
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