Blake Lively claims Justin Baldoni and Wayfarer Productions’ alleged “mean girl” smear campaign has cost her almost $300 million in lost profits and potential income.
The “Gossip Girl” actress claims she suffered a significant financial toll “in an amount of approximately $36.5 to $40.5 million” due to Baldoni’s alleged use of “the retaliatory phrases ‘tone deaf,’ ‘bully,’ and ‘mean girl’” in his efforts to damage her reputation, court documents filed on April 17 reveal.
Citing her expert Dr. Ashlee Humphreys — a professor of marketing communications at Northwestern University — Lively also claims Baldoni’s attorney Bryan Freedman’s “retaliatory” statements made along the course of their tense “It Ends With Us” feud have cost her “in an amount calculated at $24,375,267.”
Humphreys reached the calculated amount in damages by quantifying the reach of the statements through its online impressions, and coming up with “particular dollar damages.”
In terms of income, she claims her estimated damages equal somewhere between $34.3 million to $87.8 million, reports Fox News.
Her experts claim the majority of that lost income — which includes studio films, independent projects and a limited TV series — is a result of lost opportunities between August 2024 and August 2029.
She also claims her companies, Betty Booze and Blake Brown, suffered losses ranging between $39.6 million and $143.5 million in profits due to the legal battle.
Additionally, the actress is seeking somewhere between $250,000 and $400,000 for the “pain and suffering, physical pain, and humiliation” she allegedly suffered as a result of the alleged smear campaign.
In total, Lively is seeking over $290 million in damages — a massive leap from her November 2025 claim that the alleged smear campaign cost her $161 million.
Baldoni’s attorneys hit back at Lively’s claims in an April 17 filing, arguing that Lively being labeled a “‘mean girl,’ ‘bully,’ difficult to work with or ‘tone deaf’” online “did not cause further harm to her existing reputation” as the accusations surrounding Lively’s character “were widely circulated before Lively” began working with Baldoni and Wayfarer.
Reps for Lively and Baldoni did not immediately respond to Page Six’s request for comment.
While a judge presiding over their case threw out 10 of Lively’s 13 claims, the pair are set to go to trial over the three remaining claims — breach of contract, retaliation and aiding and abetting in retaliation — on May 18.
Read the full article here
