The Blake Lively Vs. Justin Baldoni Drama, Explained: Who’s Winning?

Feuds are to Hollywood as Speedos are to Pride Month.

One cannot exist without the other. On-set tension, creative differences … These are the stuff of legends. But when big names like Blake Lively, Taylor Swift, and Justin Baldoni get involved — Well, when big names like Blake Lively and Taylor Swift get involved … That’s when the tabloids and gossip rags turn things into a media circus. That’s why every other person even passingly familiar with pop culture right now knows that there’s Lively-Baldoni drama and that it vaguely involves Taylor Swift or floral dresses, or something.

That said, if you are one of the half of the pop culture-loving world who doesn’t totally understand what a Justin Baldoni is or why it is suing Blake Lively, then allow us to guide you through the drama.

It Starts With This

Fans of the bestselling book It Ends With Us were thrilled when a Hollywood adaptation of the movie came out in summer 2024. With Blake Lively as the lead Lily Bloom, and Jane the Virgin star Justin Baldoni as director, it seemed the movie could do no wrong. And while the end result wasn’t beloved by critics, the movie still turned a profit at the box office and spurred discussions of a sequel.

Then the cracks began to form.

It Ends With Sus

Months of media speculation ensued about on-set tension between Lively and Baldoni, made worse when Lively unfollowed Baldoni on Instagram. Then, in December 2024, Lively blew up the Internet when she filed an official complaint against Baldoni alleging that he had waged a negative PR campaign against her over the summer, seemingly in retribution for her attempted changes to the It Ends With Us production process. While it seemingly wasn’t hard for Baldoni and his minions to wage said campaign (Lively didn’t have a stellar reputation before all this drama, and a lot of her own words were used against her), Lively’s complaint did shed a light on how the Internet, and celebrity gossip listicles, can be weaponized in disconcerting (and anti-feminist) new ways.

But Lively’s complaint also alleged that Baldoni and his production team created an unsafe environment for the movie’s crew, and especially for women, by infusing the movie set with discussions about pornography and sexually charged comments. Baldoni also allegedly shoehorned unscripted sex scenes involving Lively into the movie.

The ramifications for Baldoni were swift and relentless: His representation dropped him almost immediately, and numerous celebrities came out in support of Lively.

Oh No You’d Better Baldon’t

Baldoni and his legal team, for their part, have denied everything now that Lively’s team has released an official lawsuit against them. They’ve also sued The New York Times for running an article discussing Baldoni’s alleged smear campaign against Lively. (Baldoni’s co-filing states that the Times worked with Lively to attack Baldoni and include “cherry-picked and altered communications stripped of necessary context.”) As of now, he has also directly sued Lively and her husband Ryan Reynolds. Additionally, Baldoni’s lawyer has also pointed out that Lively’s publicist has prior associations with Harvey Weinstein.

Meanwhile, news has also gotten out that Lively tried to use her association with Taylor Swift to intimidate Baldoni into implementing Lively’s requested script changes.

Sorry for the info dump! There’s just so much to cover if I want to keep this objective, and I already hate how much of my brain I have dedicated to writing about these people that I’ve never met and don’t care about. So, I’m trying to keep things brief.

Oh yeah, and speaking of people I’ve never met…

Taylor Swift is involved with this! I’m not going to detail everything, and if you truly want to subject yourself to brain rot, then you can read about it here, but suffice it to say: Taylor Swift was briefly subpoenaed for next year’s Lively-Baldoni trial, and now she’s not. Also, Taylor Swift and Blake Lively are reportedly not talking anymore (because of that whole subpoena thing).

In any case, I’m not here to bore you with details about Taylor Swift, and I promise I’ll never mention her name again.

Instead, I’m here to answer the question that’s on all your minds:

Is anyone winning in this drama?

Yes, Taylor Swift. OK, I was lying when I said I’d never mention her name again.

While a bunch of random people around the world have come down on either Team Blake or Team Justin, neither Lively or Baldoni is reportedly living their best life right now. While the more objective of us Poors will have to wait until Lively and Baldoni’s big scheduled court date in 2026 to form a more educated opinion of what really went down between them, it’s clear that both sides believe themselves to be clear of wrongdoing.  

​​Taylor Swift, on the other hand, no longer has to appear in court or hang out with Blake Lively. She’s the winner, for sure. And maybe she can finally release Reputation (Taylor’s Version) now!