Entertainment
Blake Lively Settled Her Lawsuits — Then Hit the Met Gala
By Erica Coleman · May 7, 2026
The case ended Monday afternoon. By Monday evening, Blake Lively was walking up the steps of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in full glam, smiling for cameras at the Met Gala.
Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni’s production company Wayfarer Studios announced a settlement just two weeks before jury selection was set to begin, ending nearly 18 months of litigation that had produced leaked texts, deposed authors, a Taylor Swift cameo in court filings, and the kind of sustained tabloid attention that made “It Ends With Us” — a film about an abusive relationship — into a cultural flashpoint about how Hollywood treats women who speak up.
The settlement’s terms were not disclosed. But Variety confirmed what the terms were not: Lively received no money from Wayfarer. The joint statement described the film as “a source of pride to all of us who worked to bring it to life.” The parties expressed hope the settlement would bring “closure.”
The settlement covers the three claims that had survived into trial — retaliation, aiding and abetting retaliation, and breach of contract — all of which were against Wayfarer, its PR firm, and associated parties rather than Baldoni personally. The ten other claims Lively had originally filed, including all sexual harassment allegations, were dismissed last month by a federal judge on legal technicalities. The dismissals did not mean the events didn’t occur. They meant the legal framework Lively used to pursue them didn’t survive pretrial review.
Behind the scenes, settlement talks began in earnest after those dismissals narrowed the case significantly. The teams met over the weekend before the announcement. Baldoni’s attorney Bryan Freedman said his client was “feeling pretty good” about the outcome. Lively’s team did not elaborate.
The case is not fully over. Lively still has a pending motion for attorneys’ fees and damages connected to Baldoni’s $400 million defamation lawsuit against her and Ryan Reynolds — a suit that was thrown out last year by the same judge who presided over this case. Under a 2023 California law protecting sexual abuse accusers from retaliatory defamation claims, Lively is seeking fees and potentially treble damages. Whether that law applies to conduct that occurred in New York and New Jersey is still being litigated.
Unsealed court documents entered into the public record after the settlement revealed that Lively’s Blake Brown skincare line — launched during the height of the controversy — significantly underperformed projections at Target, where weekly sales were expected to hit $821,000 but fell well short after negative online sentiment surged around her. Colleen Hoover, whose novel “It Ends With Us” was the basis for the film, testified in a deposition that she did not feel she could offer creative input during production despite being credited as an executive producer.
Lively’s team did not confirm what the settlement means for her professionally or legally going forward. What it means symbolically is a different question — one the Met Gala appearance seemed to answer without words.