Actor Ryan Reynolds has recently requested the court to remove him as a defendant from the $400 million defamation lawsuit filed by Justin Baldoni., as reported by CNN on March 18. Reynolds further argued that Baldoni's allegation against him was allegedly unfounded and amounted to "hurt feelings."
In his case, Baldoni claimed a smear campaign, extortion, and defamation. CNN was able to get the filing, which was filed on Tuesday, March 19. The request asserted:
"Mr. Reynolds is a defendant in this action for one reason, and one reason only: because billionaire Plaintiff Steve Sarowitz promised to spend up to $100 million to “ruin” Ms. Lively and Mr. Reynolds."
Baldoni claimed in his defamation lawsuit that Reynolds had called him a "s*xual predator" in private and was trying to have his talent agency, WME, fire him. On Tuesday, Ryan Reynolds' attorneys told The Post that the Deadpool & Wolverine actor could not have disparaged Baldoni because:
“The entirety of Mr. Baldoni’s case appears to be based on Mr. Reynolds allegedly privately calling Mr. Baldoni a ‘predator,’ but here is the problem, that is not defamation unless they can show that Mr. Reynolds did not believe that statement to be true.”
Ryan Reynolds's attorneys tried to dismiss the case against their client and remove his name as the defendant from Justin Baldoni's lawsuit
As per the same Post report, according to Reynolds' attorneys, Baldoni's anger over a fictional character in a film does not appear to be connected to any legal claims.
Here, he referred to Baldoni's claims that Nicepool from Reynolds' Deadpool & Wolverine film hurt his feelings and made fun of him. The attorneys representing Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds further stated that although Lively had filed a s*xual harassment and retaliation lawsuit against Baldoni and his business acquaintances.
However, Reynolds was unrelated to the case and had only been involved as a "supportive spouse." According to the filing, their attorneys then asserted that the only reason Reynolds is listed as a defendant in Baldoni's lawsuit is because of Steve Sarowitz.
Sarowitz, a defendant in Lively's case against Baldoni and his group, reportedly "promised to spend up to $100 million to ‘ruin’ Ms. Lively and Mr. Reynolds."
As per Page Six's report from the same day, when discussing Baldoni's presumed past, the lawyers stated:
"Mr. Reynolds’ wife has accused Mr. Baldoni — privately and in multiple complaints — of sexual harassment and retaliation, and as pointed out by Mr. Reynolds’ motion, Mr. Baldoni has also openly spoken about his past of mistreating women and pushing the boundaries of consent.”
According to a statement released by Ryan Reynolds' lawyers, Baldoni's defamation case is weak because Reynolds thinks that Baldoni is actually a predator.
“Mr. Reynolds has a First Amendment right to express his opinion of Mr. Baldoni, which should be comforting to a group of people who have repeatedly called Ms. Lively and Mr. Reynolds ‘bullies’ and other names over the past year."
Additionally, a Ryan Reynolds representative told CNN on Tuesday that Baldoni's action is "frivolous" and that "we look forward to this lawsuit being dismissed."
On the other hand, as per the New York Times's January 16 report, Baldoni accused Reynolds of helping Lively "hijack" his movie It Ends With Us. He further accused him of ruining his career in his complaint against the Hollywood couple and Lively's publicist Leslie Sloane.
Additionally, Baldoni further asserted that Lively allegedly attempted to assume a significant amount of the film's artistic direction, including having Reynolds rewrite a scene and make "unauthorised changes to the script in secret."
Moreover, as per the same CNN report, Baldoni then claimed in his lawsuit that Ryan Reynolds once "swore at Baldoni and accused him of fat-shaming his wife" at the couple's New York home.
CNN has contacted Baldoni's agents for a statement however, they haven't heard back as of yet.
