Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds Fear Justin Baldoni Can Do 'Irreparable Harm' if He Leaks Their Private Texts with Celebs
An attorney for Blake Lively argued that her "marginal conversations with high profile individuals" should not be part of the court case
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Blake Lively, Ryan Reynolds on July 22, 2024; Justin Baldoni on Aug. 6, 2024Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds's attorneys are arguing that Justin Baldoni should not have access to the A-list couple's private text messages with other celebrities for fear of leaking them to the public.
On Thursday, March 6, attorneys for Lively, 37, and her husband Reynolds, 48, as well as It Ends with Us director Baldoni, 41, consulted with Judge Lewis J. Liman over a dial-in hearing regarding Lively and Baldoni's ongoing legal conflict. During the hearing, Lively's attorney Meryl Conant Governski petitioned Judge Liman to only allow Baldoni's lawyers access to Lively and Reynolds' communications, not to Baldoni himself.
“There is a significant chance of irreparable harm if marginal conversations with high profile individuals with no relevance to the case were to fall into wrong hands," Governski said, per Page Six.
Back in January, Lively and Reynolds' famous friend Taylor Swift was mentioned in Baldoni's complaint against against Lively, Reynolds, their publicist Leslie Sloane and Sloane's PR firm Vision PR.
Baldoni's attorney responded, saying that Lively's attorneys should be required to file petitions for "access to specific sensitive materials." Meanwhile, Lively's attorneys argued that they "do need access to industry-relevant materials that would help clear our client’s name."
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Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds on Feb. 28, 2022; Jutin Baldoni on Dec. 13, 2023"The dispute is about whether a narrow category of already non-public information should be accessible only to attorneys rather than the parties," a spokesperson for Lively said in a statement to PEOPLE. "That type of provision is standard civil cases."
Judge Liman previously shut down portions of Lively's subpoena for Baldoni's phone records in court documents released on Friday, Feb. 28, when he determined the request to be “overly intrusive and disproportionate to the needs of the case."
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“Lively has identified no means to segregate those numbers that may have some relevance to her case from those numbers that would have no relevance and would reveal sensitive personal information,” read the judge’s ruling.
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Justin Baldoni, Blake Lively and Ryan ReynoldsIn a statement shared with PEOPLE, Baldoni’s lawyer Bryan Freedman said that Judge Liman “put a stop” to the actress-producer’s “egregious attempt to invade our clients’ privacy" with the Feb. 28 ruling. A spokesperson for Lively additionally claimed that Baldoni's attorney "ran into court to keep secret the phone records of who Baldoni [and his associates] were calling during their retaliatory campaign" in response to that ruling.
Attorneys for both Lively and Baldoni previously opted out of what they described as "inappropriate" and "premature” mediation, indicating that both cases in Lively v. Wayfarer Studios et al. will go to trial as scheduled in March 2026.
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