What is DARVO? Blake Lively's legal team uses term often attached to Depp vs Heard case in response to Justin Baldoni's lawsuit

In light of the defamation lawsuit filed by Justin Baldoni against Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds on Thursday, January 16, Lively's team responded by calling the lawsuit another chapter pulled from the "abuser playbook." The statement, given by the actress' lawyers to The Hollywood Reporter on Thursday, reads:

"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."

According to Medical News Today, DARVO—the term used in the statement—is a tactic employed by a person to deflect responsibility onto the person whom they've abused. It is a form of manipulation used to discredit an abuse survivor's experience.

Before the ongoing legal battle among the It Ends With Us stars, DARVO was highlighted in another major celebrity case: the 2022 Depp vs. Heard case.

The weeks-long trial was initiated when actor Johnny Depp filed a defamation lawsuit against his ex-wife, Amber Heard, who later filed a countersuit.

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Justin Baldoni's lawsuit comes less than a month after Blake Lively's complaint against him

Less than a month before Justin Baldoni's defamation lawsuit was filed, Blake Lively filed a complaint against the actor with the California Civil Rights Department on December 20, 2024, accusing him of s*xual harassment and creating a hostile work environment on the movie set.

Over ten days later, Lively filed a formal lawsuit in New York (on December 31) alleging that Baldoni and Jamey Heath's behavior on the set of It Ends With Us, as well as their alleged smear campaign, caused her "grief, fear, trauma, and extreme anxiety". Heath is Justin's close friend, the CEO of Wayfarer Studio, and the lead producer of their 2024 romance drama.

Per Blake Lively's complaint, Justin Baldoni "inserted improvised gratuitous s*xual content and/or scenes involving n*dity into the film (including for an underage character) in highly unsettling ways" before the shooting of the film began.

Other allegations in the Hick actress's lawsuit included Baldoni and Heath entering her trailer "uninvited" while she was undressed or "vulnerable," and Justin improvising physical intimacy that had not been discussed. She also claimed that Baldoni and his PR team launched a smear campaign against her following the movie's wrap.

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Baldoni filed a lawsuit against Blake Lively as well as The New York Times

Justin Baldoni has filed two lawsuits thus far, with the first one being a $250 million lawsuit against The New York Times for alleged libel, on December 31, 2024, claiming that the outlet used altered and "'cherry-picked communications stripped of necessary context and deliberately spliced to mislead."

Justin's second lawsuit, on January 16, 2025, was a $400 million defamation lawsuit filed against Blake Lively, Ryan Reynolds, their publicist, Leslie Sloane, and Sloane's PR firm Vision PR, Inc, on claims of civil extortion, false light invasion of privacy, breach of implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing, and intentional interference with contractual relations.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, Baldoni's attorney Bryan Freedman said that the Thursday lawsuit is "based on an overwhelming amount of untampered evidence detailing Blake Lively and her team’s duplicitous attempt to destroy Justin Baldoni, his team and their respective companies by disseminating grossly edited, unsubstantiated, new and doctored information to the media."

Freedman added:

"It is clear based on our own all out willingness to provide all complete text messages, emails, video footage and other documentary evidence that was shared between the parties in real time, that this is a battle she will not win and will certainly regret."

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So far, no date regarding the lawsuit's court hearing has been announced.