Blake Lively deposition no more public after recent ruling

Blake Lively's deposition sealed in legal battle with Justin Baldoni

Blake Lively's deposition in her ongoing legal dispute with her It Ends With Us costar and director Justin Baldoni has been sealed.

Judge Lewis Liman, presiding over the case in New York, ordered last week that the nearly 300-page deposition be sealed, further accusing Baldoni's lawyers of inviting "scandal."

The judge criticised Baldoni's legal team for attaching the entire transcript to a court filing despite only referencing two pages.

"The Wayfarer Parties’ attachment of the entire, nearly 300-page deposition—after citing only two pages of it in the Letter—served no proper litigation purpose and instead appears to have been intended to burden Lively (and as a result, the Court) and to invite public speculation and scandal," Litman wrote in his order.

The judge said Baldoni’s team failed to argue that the full deposition was relevant, suggesting the filing was a strategic move to prompt a public-relations response from Lively. 

“The conclusion is inescapable that the Wayfarer Parties filed gratuitous amounts of irrelevant pages so that, if Lively moved for continued sealing of the irrelevant pages, the Wayfarer Parties could then use Lively’s response for their own public-relations purposes. The Court has not only the power but also the responsibility to step in,” the judge concluded.

The legal battle stems from Lively’s allegations that Baldoni sexually harassed her during the film’s production, and Baldoni’s counterclaim accusing Lively and her husband, actor Ryan Reynolds, of attempting to destroy his career through false allegations.

In June, both lawsuits were dismissed, with the court ruling that Lively’s harassment claims are legally protected.