Justin Baldoni’s lawyer is clarifying his “victim” comment amid the legal battle with his client’s It Ends With Us costar Blake Lively.
Bryan Freedman, who represents Baldoni, 41, in the case heading to trial in March 2026, appeared on The Town podcast with host Matthew Belloni on Thursday, March 13.
The two discussed issues in the ongoing legal conflict, which began when Lively, 37, filed sued Baldoni, plus his PR team and members of his Wayfarer Studios company, alleging sexual harassment and a retaliatory smear campaign, which he denies. The director filed a countersuit against Lively, her husband Ryan Reynolds and their PR team, alleging defamation and extortion.
During a March 6 pre-trial conference with federal Judge Lewis J. Liman, Lively and Reynolds’ attorney Meryl Conant Governski said, according to Deadline, that both sides’ impulse to leak information to the media outweighs complying with a court’s gag order, necessitating an “Attorney’s Eyes Only” order. Freedman responded, as host Belloni reminded him in their podcast interview, that no one “has any intent of harming Ms. Lively in any way.”
“My clients have a right to defend themselves,” added Freedman in court. “That is in no way abusing the victim.”
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“It is interesting you said ‘not abusing the victim,’ ” Belloni told the lawyer. “Does that mean you agree that Blake is a victim here?”
“I actually think that a lot of people are victims here,” responded Freedman. “I think Justin is a victim here, I think Melissa Nathan is a victim. I think Jed Wallace is a victim. I think Jen Abel is a victim, I think Steve Sarowitz is. Jamey Heath is.”
Pressing him, Belloni said, “But you did say Blake is a victim in a court hearing.”
“What I said is, ‘This is not attacking the victim,’ ” clarified Freedman. When Belloni said he had “put scare quotes” around the word “victim,” Freedman said, “Yeah. Well, ‘victim’ can be in the eye of the beholder.”
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Lively’s legal team has characterized their client as a victim in multiple statements.
In January, they criticized Baldoni’s lawsuit, saying, “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. This is what experts call DARVO. Deny. Attack. Reverse Victim Offender.”
Today, Liman partially granted Lively her request for stricter safeguards to prevent private communications within the Hollywood community from leaking to the media. Limiting the scope of the restrictions she sought, the court ruled that an “Attorneys’ Eyes Only” designation can only be applied if their disclosure is “highly likely to cause a significant business, commercial, financial or privacy injury.”
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