Johnny Depp‘s attorney has some thoughts on how Justin Baldoni and his legal team are publicly navigating the lawsuit drama with Blake Lively.
During the Tuesday, February 4, episode of the “Law&Crime Sidebar with Jesse Weber” podcast, Benjamin Chew — who represented Depp, 61, in his widely covered defamation trial against Amber Heard — referred to Baldoni’s approach to the case as “very aggressive.”
“Usually you would not do something like that before a hearing, but I’m sure that they vetted it carefully, vetted the material carefully,” Chew said in reference to Baldoni, 41, launching a website with his amended complaint and an alleged “timeline of relevant events” to address Lively’s sexual harassment claims against him. “I think it is very aggressive.”
Chew, who is not involved in either lawsuit, was surprised by how Baldoni and his team went about addressing Lively’s accusations.
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“Certainly posting a pleading doesn’t seem to me to be out of bounds. These are pleadings made in the public record,” he noted. “But it’s a novel approach, a bold approach.”
Depp’s legal counsel wanted to “remain agnostic” in response to a question about who he thought had the upper hand in the case. However, Chew noted that having receipts will be “particularly persuasive” as a visual guide because video and text message evidence is “more impactful” than “assertions of counsel.”
Lively, 37, and Baldoni’s dynamic initially made headlines when their film It Ends With Us premiered in August 2024. Throughout the press tour last summer, Baldoni — who also directed the film — and Lively were not seen promoting the film together, which raised questions about potential tension between the costars.
Lively ultimately filed paperwork in December 2024 accusing Baldoni of sexual harassment, creating a “hostile work environment” and causing her “severe emotional distress” while working together.
Baldoni’s lawyer Bryan Freedman called Lively’s claims “completely false, outrageous and intentionally salacious,” alleging in a statement to Us Weekly that Lively filed the lawsuit to “fix her negative reputation” and “rehash a narrative” regarding the production of It Ends With Us. (Lively served as a producer on the movie.)
Freedman went on to claim that Lively made “multiple demands and threats” throughout filming, which included “threatening to not show up to set, threatening to not promote the film, ultimately leading to its demise during release, if her demands were not met.”
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That same month, Baldoni was one of 10 plaintiffs who launched a $250 million lawsuit against The New York Times for its coverage of Lively’s accusations. A spokesperson for the The New York Times told Us that the outlet is planning to “vigorously defend against the lawsuit.”
Baldoni’s Wayfarer Studios also filed a lawsuit against Lively, her husband, Ryan Reynolds, and Lively’s publicist, Leslie Sloane, seeking $400 million in damages. The lawsuit, filed in January, included accusations of civil extortion, defamation, false light invasion of privacy and other claims.
“This lawsuit is a legal action based on an overwhelming amount of untampered evidence detailing Blake Lively and her team’s duplicitous attempt to destroy Justin Baldoni, his team and their respective companies by disseminating grossly edited, unsubstantiated, new and doctored information to the media,” Freedman told Us at the time. “It is clear based on our own all out willingness to provide all complete text messages, emails, video footage and other documentary evidence that was shared between the parties in real time, that this is a battle she will not win and will certainly regret. Blake Lively was either severely misled by her team or intentionally and knowingly misrepresented the truth.”
In response, Lively slammed the legal action taken against her.
“This latest lawsuit from Justin Baldoni, Wayfarer Studios, and its associates is another chapter in the abuser playbook. This is an age-old story: A woman speaks up with concrete evidence of sexual harassment and retaliation and the abuser attempts to turn the tables on the victim. This is what experts call DARVO. Deny. Attack. Reverse Victim Offender,” the statement read. “Wayfarer has opted to use the resources of its billionaire co-founder to issue media statements, launch meritless lawsuits, and threaten litigation to overwhelm the public’s ability to understand that what they are doing is retaliation against sexual harassment allegations.”
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Lively’s legal team accused Baldoni and his associates of trying to “shift” the focus onto her.
“They are trying to shift the narrative to Ms. Lively by falsely claiming that she seized creative control and alienated the cast from Mr. Baldoni. The evidence will show that the cast and others had their own negative experiences with Mr. Baldoni and Wayfarer. The evidence will also show that Sony asked Ms. Lively to oversee Sony’s cut of the film, which they then selected for distribution and was a resounding success,” the statement continued.
The statement concluded: “Their response to sexual harassment allegations: she wanted it, it’s her fault. Their justification for why this happened to her: look what she was wearing. In short, while the victim focuses on the abuse, the abuser focuses on the victim. The strategy of attacking the woman is desperate, it does not refute the evidence in Ms. Lively’s complaint, and it will fail.”
The larger trial for Lively and Baldoni is set to begin on March 9, 2026.
