Justin Baldoni is seeking a massive amount of money in his defamation and extortion lawsuit against Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds, but legal experts tell Page Six the $400 million figure — which is four times the actors’ combined net worth — is a “PR play.”
“That’s just a number picked out of thin air,” family law attorney Raiford Dalton Palmer, who is not working on the case, says before noting that the legal term for this tactic is “ad damnum.”
“It bears no relation to what they can actually prove here,” the “I Just Want This Drone” author says.
Palmer adds, “As a lawyer for the Plaintiff here, you want to aim high — it’s common to shoot for the moon. It’s for scare value and to get press attention.”
Neama Rahmani, president of Los Angeles-based West Coast Trial Lawyers, agrees that the $400 million is likely motivated by publicity factors.
“Obviously, a high number in the lawsuit makes for great headlines, and this case is as much about Baldoni clearing his name and sending a message to Lively than actually getting money out of her,” the trial attorney says.
“Baldoni was dropped by WME and lost his women’s solidarity award, so he’s going to push this case to have his truth come out and avoid being canceled.”
Entertainment lawyer Camron Dowlatshahi concurs, “Overall, it’s definitely a PR play more than anything.”
“I don’t see a world in which this ends in the $400 million range,” the attorney from the Los Angeles-based MSD Lawyers says.
Baldoni’s reps and lawyer did not immediately respond to Page Six’s request for comment on the publicity claims.
Dowlatshahi explains that the only rare occasion in which Baldoni could win that full amount is if he proves he was “on his way to making a half billion dollars” before he was allegedly defamed and extorted.
A verdict like that could threaten Lively and Reynolds’ combined fortune since she reportedly has a net worth of $30 million and he has a net worth of $71.5 million — $101.5 million combined — according to Forbes.
Baldoni’s reps and attorney have also not responded to our request for comment on why that massive figure was chosen.
Our legal experts further explained, though, why it is highly unlikely that Baldoni will walk away with anything close to the total sum in damages he is seeking.
“Plaintiffs can and often do claim exorbitant damages but this does not mean they can prove the damages alleged,” Nicole Page, partner at Reavis Page Jump LLP, tells us.
“Defamation claims often involve speculative and subjective damages. Because of that, it’s not uncommon for plaintiffs in defamation lawsuits to claim stratospheric damages.”
The corporate law and entertainment attorney says she also doesn’t believe the $400 million amount was chosen to try and bankrupt Lively, 37, or Reynolds, 48, because she doesn’t think Baldoni or his lawyers “actually believe he would recover that amount.”
Page concludes, “I think the damages amount selected are just posturing and messaging that Baldoni will fight to the death to defend his name and bring Lively and Reynolds down.”
“What Baldoni asked for in the complaint doesn’t matter,” Rahmani, meanwhile, reasserts. “He could be Dr. Evil in Austin Powers and ask for $1 million or even $1 billion and it wouldn’t affect the trial.”
“What matters is what Baldoni’s lawyers ask the jury to award during closing arguments, and what the jurors come back with, if anything at all.”
In one of the most high profile defamation cases to date, Johnny Depp was awarded a total of $15 million in damages for comments his ex-wife Amber Heard made in her 2018 op-ed for the Washington Post.
Heard was awarded $2 million in compensatory damages, but $0 in punitive damages for her countersuit.
Fans who have been following the Baldoni-Lively saga since it began in August 2024 will have to wait until 2026 to see who comes out victorious, as a trial date has just been set for March 9 of that year.
There is a chance that Lively could be the one to walk away from that courtroom with deep pockets, though, as she has also filed a lawsuit against her former co-star.
The “Gossip Girl” alum is suing Baldoni for alleged sexual harassment, retaliation, breach of contract, infliction of emotional distress, invasion of privacy and lost wages for an unspecified amount in damages.
Lively is accusing the actor of making her feel uncomfortable during their time filming together by allegedly making sex-related remarks, including speaking about his past porn addiction, walking in on her while she was breast-feeding her child, fat-shaming her and other scandalous claims.
She also alleged he hired a crisis manager to launch a smear campaign against her after several unfavorable interview clips of her resurfaced online.
Her claims were first made in a California Civil Rights Department complaint last December.
Baldoni’s lawyer, Bryan Freedman, slammed the accusations as “shameful” and “categorically false.”
He also claimed Lively’s suit was “another desperate attempt to ‘fix’ her negative reputation, which was garnered from her own remarks and actions during the campaign for the film, interviews and press activities that were observed publicly, in real time and unedited, which allowed for the internet to generate their own views and opinions.”
Baldoni has since filed a $250 million libel lawsuit against the New York Times for their coverage of the scandal and released never-before-seen videos and audio of him and Lively to help him plea his case in the court of public opinion.
The Wayfarer Studios co-founder leaked raw footage of the actors filming a slow motion dance sequence — in which they discussed their respective spouses and Lively joked about the size of his nose — in an effort to debunk any sexual harassment allegations.
He also released a voice note in which he apologized to his co-star for a heated discussion they had regarding script edits Lively had made.
Lively’s team has requested a gag order to stop Baldoni’s lawyer from releasing any further information to the public, but Freedman has said he won’t be “bullied” into silence and is fighting back.
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