Inside Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds New York Penthouse as It Becomes Wrapped Up in Justin Baldoni’s Messy $400 Million Defamation Lawsuit

“It Ends With Us” costars Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni‘s bitter legal battle has reached staggering new heights after the latter launched a $400 million defamation lawsuit against the mother of four and her husband, Ryan Reynolds. In the suit, Baldoni accuses them of trying to damage the potential success of the movie and “destroy” his career.

The messy legal dispute was filed in New York City on behalf of Baldoni; his production company, Wayfarer Studios; his producing partner, Jamey Heath; his crisis PR manager, Melissa Nathan; his publicist, Jennifer Abel; and the It Ends With Us LLC, according to CNN.

Baldoni, 40, who also directed the movie, and his other plaintiffs are seeking $400 million in damages over claims that Lively, 37, used her “immense power as one of the world’s best-known celebrities” to try and “destroy [their] livelihoods and businesses.”

His suit comes after Lively accused him of sexual harassment in her own complaint that was filed at the end of 2024.

Baldoni’s 179-page complaint—which also names Lively and Reynolds’ publicist, Leslie Sloan, as a defendant—lays out a series of shocking allegations against the couple and even appears to drag their close friend, Taylor Swift, into the fray amid speculation that she is the “megacelebrity friend” referenced in the suit.

The mention of that friend was made while Baldoni was recounting an incident that he says took place at Lively and Reynolds’ expansive Tribeca penthouse—where he claims he was “pressured” into accepting changes to the “It Ends With Us” script that had been made by the actress.

According to Baldoni, he was “summoned” to the couple’s New York City apartment to discuss changes that Lively had made to a specific scene in the movie, which takes place between the two lead characters on a rooftop. The actor and director says that when he arrived at the home, he was greeted by Reynolds, who immediately began heaping praise on his wife’s script updates.

“As the meeting was ending, a famous, and famously close, friend of Reynolds and Lively, walked into the room and similarly began praising Lively’s script,” the lawsuit states, per CNN. “Baldoni understood the subtext: he needed to comply with Lively’s direction for the script.”

Baldoni claims that he later sent Lively a text message to reiterate his appreciation for the changes that she had made, adding that he “would have felt that way without Ryan and Taylor,” and that he was “excited and grateful” to be working on the project with her. His reference to “Taylor” has led many to believe that the person in question is Swift, who is a close friend of Lively and her spouse.

The couple’s apartment is mentioned again elsewhere in the lawsuit, when Baldoni says that Reynolds “swore at [him] and accused him of fat-shaming his wife” while the director was paying a visit to the abode.

In a response to Baldoni’s latest filing—which comes weeks after he sued the New York Times over accusations the publication worked with Lively to publish a biased article against him—the actress’s own legal team described it as “another chapter in the abuser playbook.”

The statement continued: “This is an age-old story: A woman speaks up with concrete evidence of sexual harassment and retaliation and the abuser attempts to turn the tables on the victim.”

Lively and Reynolds are known for being fiercely private of their personal lives—and made their desire to protect that privacy all the more clear when they snapped up their Tribeca loft, which is located in a “paparazzi-proof” building that has reportedly been home to a host of celebrities, including Justin Timblerake, Jennifer Lawrence, and Harry Styles.

Such is the secrecy surrounding the abode that no official sale price has ever been revealed; however, units in the building have previously been sold for anywhere between $3 million and $51 million.

The couple are understood to have purchased the property in 2017 and have since used the sprawling space as their New York City homebase, with Lively regularly sharing glimpses inside the home on her Instagram account.

Despite recently becoming a hotspot for celebrity-owned apartments, the building actually began as a book bindery in the 19th century, before being transformed into luxury dwellings. There are now 53 units, including eight penthouses, in the eight-story building.

All of the units retain unique design features that were present when the building was being used as a book bindery, including exposed-wood beams, wrought-iron accents, and plenty of brick walls, all of which can be seen in Lively’s regular “outfit of the day” posts on her social media accounts.

However, should the duo—who share four children—ever feel the need to escape the city, they only have to drive an hour upstate to their Pound Ridge property, which they purchased for $5.7 million back in 2012.

The seven-bedroom abode was built in 1860 and sits on 12 acres that include a pond and orchards.