Lively vs. Baldoni kicks off
It's Gossip Time!
Hello and welcome to Gossip Time, a weekly guide to the stars by Allie Jones. This week: an actress waits for her first hearing, a duchess waits to debut her new podcast, and Kaia Gerber gets a new boyfriend right away.
Before we get into the latest in the Lively vs. Baldoni case, why not catch up on Justin Baldoni’s strange backstory? There is a 27-minute proposal video (and a lively comments section!) waiting for you here.
This week, Judge Lewis J. Liman of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York set a trial date for Blake Lively’s case against Justin Baldoni, his production company Wayfarer Studios, Wayfarer CEO Jamey Heath, and publicists Jennifer Abel and Melissa Nathan, and Baldoni’s countersuit against Lively, Ryan Reynolds, and publicist Leslie Sloane, which will likely be combined into one case, Blake Lively vs. Wayfarer Studios et al. The date is: March 9, 2026. Aah! We are going to be talking about this forever. The first hearing, at least, is on Monday. Here’s what we know:
Lively and Reynolds plan to file a motion to dismiss Baldoni’s suit (this is pretty standard practice and may or may not work)
Lively and Reynolds have requested a gag order for Baldoni’s lead attorney Bryan Freedman, who has been leaking “evidence” to the press
Baldoni’s attorneys have asked to depose Lively as soon as possible
And Lively has requested not to be deposed by Freedman specifically
The most interesting item here, I think, is the potential gag order. Baldoni’s attorneys have promised to set up a website that will host texts and videos they say prove Baldoni did not sexually harass Lively on the set of It Ends With Us and then set up a retaliatory PR campaign against her during the press tour for the movie in August. If the request for a gag order is granted, we will probably never get to see this super cool domain.
Baldoni’s attorneys have already leaked a bunch of stuff anyway, but none of it has seemed particularly exculpatory to me. There’s the 10-minute video of Baldoni and Lively filming a slow-dance scene together (Lively claims Baldoni tried to improvise kissing during the scene without her consent; the video shows him trying to kiss her). There are some strange texts from Lively to Baldoni in which she compares herself to Khaleesi and calls Reynolds and Taylor Swift her “dragons.” And then there’s Baldoni’s breathy, six-minute voice memo in response to the dragons text, which is arguably stranger and certainly not something I’d be thrilled to receive from a coworker at two in the morning.
As Hunter Harris pointed out yesterday, Baldoni’s team seems to be running the same playbook that they did during the press tour: Flood the zone with enough annoying tidbits about Lively so that the public remains confused about what really happened. It is regretfully working over on TikTok, where commentators are finding Baldoni’s voice memo…dreamy?
Lively, meanwhile, has remained out of the public eye since filing her initial complaint in December. TMZ claims that she and Reynolds are currently on vacation with their four kids, but the outlet was unable to surface any more details, like where they went, for instance. (Reynolds just did a talk at the Paley Center for Media in New York yesterday.)
As we wait for the hearing on Monday, I am thinking of the poor graphic designer tasked with working up concepts for BaldoniInnocent.com. Which font says, “I believe women, except when they’re talking about me?”
Speaking of long waits: the Meghan Markle renaissance we were promised has been delayed. The Duchess of Sussex announced earlier this month that she was postponing the release of her Netflix lifestyle show, With Love, Meghan, in the wake of the California wildfires, and now it seems her new podcast has been pushed back as well. Meghan signed a deal with Lemonada Media a year ago and has yet to produce any new content (or any information about what that new content might be). And don’t get me started on American Riviera Orchard, which has only managed to send Kris Jenner one jar of jam since it “launched” back in April.
The Netflix show, at least, is in the can, and it is now scheduled to be released on March 4th. Meghan’s old Suits costar Abigail Spencer had this to say about it to People this week:
“What I’m so excited about is that people will really get an authentic look at the woman that I love and know. Also, you’re gonna learn a lot. I learned a lot from her and she actually gets to teach me something on the show. I’m just so grateful. It’s really from her heart. It really is with love.”
Okay sounds good :)
STUFF BY HILARY DUFF: Hilary Duff got this skin treatment called Aquagold. It’s a prepared cocktail with a proprietary blend of ingredients specifically to give a glow and it is penetrated with tiny 24 carat gold needles.
Finally, I’ll leave you with this photo of Kaia Gerber, 23, hanging on to Lewis Pullman, 32, while talking to his dad Bill Pullman, 71 at Salazar in LA on Wednesday:
According to People, Gerber and Lewis are a “cute couple” and have been “spending time together the last few weeks.” You may recall that Gerber broke up with Austin Butler, 33, at the end of last year and then was spotted with Lewis during her family vacation to Cabo over the holidays.
This seems like a nice nepo-kid match to me, and perfectly timed: Lewis is starring in his first Marvel movie, Thunderbolts, in May. Cheers!
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I would like a reality show about the yes people who surround Meghan
Meghan just needs to start a paid only Substack and be done with it, she'd make an absolute fortune