Justin Baldoni details the tense confrontation with Ryan Reynolds as the lawsuit moves forward.
The January 2024 meeting is mentioned in the lawsuit Baldoni filed in January 2025. His lawyers alleged that Reynolds harshly reprimanded him in what Baldoni later described as a traumatic encounter, stating that he had never been spoken to like that in his life.
Justin Baldoni alleges that Ryan Reynolds "ambushed" him in a private confrontation that left him "emotionally paralyzed," according to recently revealed text messages in the ongoing legal battle involving Blake Lively and the production of "It Ends With Us."
In court documents obtained by PEOPLE magazine, Baldoni's text messages, submitted as evidence, detail a tense and highly personal meeting that took place at Reynolds and Lively's New York City apartment in January 2024.
He claims the encounter was triggered by accusations from his co-star, Lively, and became so intense that Baldoni describes feeling emotionally frozen.
The message, dated January 5, 2024, was sent to actor Rainn Wilson. In it, Baldoni, 42, reflects on what he says happened the night before, just one day before filming was set to resume following the end of the Hollywood strikes.
“Ryan spoke to me like I was a five-year-old and scolded me,” Baldoni wrote. “They basically said that Jamey [Heath] and I weren’t who we claimed to be and that having a podcast was dangerous because it made people feel safe.”
According to Baldoni, Reynolds read a list of accusations from a phone, many of which were loosely based on real events but completely taken out of context. He said the words “disgusting” and “abusive” were used to describe his behavior, and that he was given a written apology to read aloud, but he couldn’t bring himself to do it.
The director wrote in the messages: “It’s hard to believe that so much of what you think about me is false because you’re so convinced it’s real… I was emotionally numb, something that hasn’t happened to me in years.”
He continued: “My mind was in internal conflict because what I wanted was to run away and destroy the whole film, as I felt it was a great injustice. However, the only option was to acknowledge her and Ryan’s feelings, apologize, and face the wrath of a furious husband; yes, I couldn’t even do that well. I prayed and prayed and prayed for the words, but they wouldn’t come, so I felt abandoned by God at that moment, even though I know that wasn’t the case.”
“We were told that this was the worst experience of her life,” Baldoni added, referring to Lively. “And others have witnessed this behavior… the behavior on our set was disturbing.”
According to Baldoni, he asked the trainer how much Lively weighed because of a scene in which his character would have to lift her and her history of back problems. He says the trainer relayed the question to Lively, who then told Reynolds, which led to the confrontation.
His lawyer, Bryan Freedman, later told Page Six that Reynolds was angry, stern, and impassioned during the meeting with Baldoni, but clarified that Reynolds did not reprimand him aggressively: "Reprimand means to scold or criticize angrily."
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