Lively Wins Partial Fees After May Settlement

Blake Lively was awarded about $407,000 in legal fees and roughly $44,000 in costs after settling the It Ends With Us dispute with Justin Baldoni, far short of the more than $8 million she sought. U.S. District Judge Lewis J. Liman limited the award to fees tied to defending against Baldoni’s defamation claim, citing California’s 47.1 law intended to shield sexual harassment survivors from retaliatory suits. The settlement, reached in May 2026 to avoid a federal trial, allowed a partial payout related to the dismissed defamation case, but she did not receive compensation for other claims Baldoni raised. Baldoni’s team framed the outcome as a victory for their clients while Lively’s camp described it as accountability and the first application of California’s retaliatory defamation protections. The dispute has been characterized as a high-profile clash over accountability rather than monetary gain, underscoring tensions between celebrities and legal expectations in defamation and harassment contexts.