Ryan Reynolds moved to remove himself from Justin Baldoni’s legal battle involving him and his wife, Blake Lively—while taking more shots at Baldoni in the process.
Reynolds asked a court to dismiss Justin Baldoni’s defamation lawsuit against him on Tuesday, Variety reports, arguing Baldoni cannot sue him over “hurt feelings.”
The Deadpool actor’s lawyers called Baldoni’s lawsuit a “gossip rag” full of “thin-skinned outrage,” arguing it is “a burn book filled with grievances.”
The complaint asserts that Baldoni’s case doesn’t identify a single defamatory statement made by Reynolds. In particular, Reynolds doubled down on his claim that Justin Baldoni is a “predator,” which Baldoni singled out as a defamatory claim, calling it “substantially true.”
“The entirety of Mr. Baldoni’s case appears to be based on Mr. Reynolds allegedly privately calling Mr. Baldoni a “predator,’ but here is the problem, that is not defamation unless they can show that Mr. Reynolds did not believe that statement to be true,” Reynold’s lawyers told Deadline.
Court documents reportedly also note Reynold’s freedom of speech, reading, “Mr. Reynolds has a First Amendment right to hold Mr. Baldoni—or any man who Mr. Reynolds believes sexually harassed his wife—in “deep disdain.”
The Baldoni-Lively-Reynolds drama began after Lively accused Baldoni of sexually harassing her in 2024 on the set of It Ends With Us, a film in which Lively and Baldoni co-star, and of trying to spread negative stories about her.
Baldoni responded to Lively’s complaint by suing Reynolds and Lively for $400 million, claiming they were trying to destroy his career and accusing the Deadpool actor of calling him a “predator” in private and using the character of “Nicepool” in Deadpool & Wolverine to mock and bully him.
Reynolds is seeking for the lawsuit to be dismissed before it is scheduled to go to trial in May 2026.
The Daily Beast has reached out to Baldoni’s lawyer for comment.
