Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds have escalated their legal fight against actor and filmmaker Justin Baldoni, seeking extensive phone records in an effort to substantiate their claims that Baldoni orchestrated a smear campaign against Lively. The dispute, which began with Lively's December 2024 lawsuit alleging sexual harassment and workplace retaliation during the production of It Ends With Us, has since expanded into a contentious legal battle involving multiple subpoenas and a $400 million defamation counterclaim from Baldoni.
In a letter to U.S. District Judge Lewis J. Liman on Friday, Baldoni's attorney, Mitchell Schuster, called the subpoenas filed by Lively and Reynolds "flagrantly overbroad" and an unjustified invasion of privacy. "It is hard to overstate how broad, invasive, and atypical these Subpoenas truly are," Schuster wrote. "This is civil litigation, not a criminal prosecution, and the Lively Parties are not the FBI."
Lively and Reynolds issued subpoenas to AT&T, Verizon, and T-Mobile earlier this week, requesting years of phone and text records, location data, and other communications involving Baldoni and several individuals connected to his production company, Wayfarer Studios. The subpoenas target publicists Melissa Nathan and Jennifer Abel, as well as Wayfarer's CEO Jamey Heath and co-founder Steve Sarowitz.
Baldoni's legal team argues that the subpoenas are disproportionate and infringe upon the privacy of third parties. The requested records are “wildly disproportionate to the needs of the case and unnecessarily invade the privacy of untold numbers of third parties, including family, friends, business partners, and-quite literally-any other person with whom any of the targets have communicated over a period of years," Schuster wrote in the filing.
The dispute stems from Lively's allegations that Baldoni engaged in inappropriate conduct during the filming of It Ends With Us and later spearheaded efforts to discredit her when she spoke out. Baldoni has denied the accusations and countersued Lively, Reynolds, and their publicist Leslie Sloane, claiming civil extortion and defamation. The case, Lively v. Wayfarer Studios et al., is set to go to trial in March 2026.
A spokesperson for Lively challenged Baldoni's resistance to the subpoenas, referencing prior claims from his legal team that they possessed "receipts" proving Lively's alleged misconduct. "If they have so many receipts, why are they so afraid to produce them?" the spokesperson said. "Mr. Baldoni and the Wayfarer parties have already admitted that Ms. Lively raised concerns multiple times. They have admitted that they created a plan in case she 'made her grievances public,' in which they planned to plant stories suggesting Ms. Lively was a 'bully' and 'weaponizing feminism.'"
The statement also referenced alleged internal communications obtained through previous subpoenas. "They have admitted that they bragged and laughed at how negatively the narrative had shifted against Ms. Lively, and how successful they were at 'confusing' people," the spokesperson continued. "Now they want to block the very discovery that would expose them. If they didn't do it, they would have nothing to hide."
Baldoni's legal team, led by attorney Bryan Freedman, pushed back against the subpoenas, arguing that they constitute a baseless "fishing expedition." In a statement on Feb. 12, Freedman said, "Subpoenas are an ordinary part of the litigation process. What is extraordinary is what the Lively Parties are seeking. They are asking for every single call, text, data log, and even real-time location information for the past 2.5 years, regardless of the sender, recipient, or subject matter."
"This massive fishing expedition demonstrates that they are desperately seeking any factual basis for their provably false claims," Freedman added. "They will find none."
Baldoni's attorneys also claimed that cellular providers may already be preparing to comply with the subpoenas, prompting Schuster to urge Judge Liman to intervene "at the soonest possible opportunity."
Lively and Reynolds, who have not publicly commented beyond legal filings, maintain that the phone records will provide critical evidence regarding Baldoni's alleged efforts to damage Lively's reputation. A representative for Lively said, "Phone records belonging to all of the individual defendants will expose the full web of individuals who were involved in the smear campaign against Ms. Lively."
