Justin Baldoni, the man currently staring down an $8 million legal fee request from Blake Lively's attorneys, has broken his 13-month Instagram silence to post a five-minute video about gratitude. He thanked God. He thanked his friends. He did not, at any point, mention Blake Lively, the movie, or the lawsuit that consumed the last year and a half of both their lives.
What the Video Actually Says
Baldoni posted the video Wednesday alongside his wife Emily on Instagram, and the whole thing is carefully, almost surgically vague. According to NBC News, he says "gratitude has saved us" and talks about "painful things that have been spoken to existence" over the last couple of years. He mentions noise. He mentions love. He mentions God pressing a reset button.
He does not mention 'It Ends With Us.' He does not mention Blake Lively. He does not mention Ryan Reynolds, whom he sued for defamation and extortion. He does not mention the sexual harassment allegations Lively made against him. It is, in effect, a five-minute non-statement statement, which is its own kind of statement.
Emily Baldoni adds that "the truth and the facts have spoken for themselves" and hints that there is "so much more to say" before pivoting to healing and spending time with their kids. She also says their family had to wrestle with understanding "how could something like this even happen, let alone disguised as a fight for women." That last part is doing a lot of heavy lifting.
The Legal Mess This Video Is Floating On Top Of
Here is the timeline, because the timeline matters. Lively went public with her allegations against Baldoni in December 2024, roughly four months after 'It Ends With Us' hit theaters. She filed a federal lawsuit alleging sexual harassment during production and claiming Wayfarer Studios, Baldoni's production company, retaliated against her after she raised misconduct concerns on set.
Baldoni denied everything and countersued in January 2025, alleging Lively and Reynolds tried to destroy his reputation and accused her of using her grievances as a power grab to "seize control" of the film. The case blew up Hollywood, surfacing text messages between A-listers and pulling back the curtain on studio business that usually stays well hidden.
Then the courts started ruling. U.S. District Judge Lewis J. Liman tossed most of Lively's claims, including harassment, defamation, and conspiracy, NBC News reports, finding in part that because she was an independent contractor rather than an employee, she couldn't pursue those claims under federal civil rights law. Three claims survived: breach of contract, retaliation, and aiding and abetting retaliation. Liman also dismissed Baldoni's defamation and extortion suit against Lively and Reynolds. The two sides settled in May before trial.
The $8 Million Bill Nobody's Talking About In The Video
Here is the part that makes the timing of Wednesday's gratitude video genuinely interesting. According to NBC News, Lively's legal team is arguing she is entitled to $7,495,526.87 in attorneys' fees and $539,514.01 in litigation expenses, citing a California law that protects people who report sexual misconduct from retaliatory defamation suits.
Baldoni and Wayfarer have until Monday to respond to that request. The judge set that deadline. So the week Baldoni chooses to break his public silence and talk about gratitude and healing and love showing up when God strips everything away? It is the week before he has to formally respond to an almost eight-million-dollar legal fee demand. Whether that timing is deliberate image management, coincidence, or just how life works out sometimes is left as an exercise for the reader.
Where Things Actually Stand
The settlement in May resolved the core dispute before it ever got to a jury, which means neither side got a public verdict. That matters. Baldoni's people can point to the judge tossing most of Lively's claims. Lively's people can point to the judge letting three claims survive and dismissing Baldoni's countersuit while leaving open the door for her to pursue financial damages related to it.
Baldoni, who played Rafael on 'Jane the Virgin' and directed the film at the center of all this, has been largely out of the public eye since the lawsuit dropped. NBC News reports he now lives in Nashville with his family and hasn't announced any new projects. The last time he posted on Instagram before this week was June 2025, when he marked his wedding anniversary. Lively's team did not respond to NBC News's request for comment on the video.
The Dingo Take
Look, nobody comes out of a messy Hollywood lawsuit looking completely clean, and the actual legal record here is genuinely complicated. The judge tossed the headline claims. The case settled without a verdict. Both sides can spin what happened and technically be telling a version of the truth. That's how settlements work; they're specifically designed to let everyone leave the building with some dignity intact.
But posting a warm, gauzy, God-and-gratitude video four days before you have to respond to a demand for eight million dollars in legal fees is a choice. It's a choice that says something about how Baldoni's team reads the court of public opinion right now. The video doesn't address anything concrete. Emily Baldoni's line about not understanding how this could happen "disguised as a fight for women" is about as close as they get to engaging with the substance, and it engages by dismissing without ever naming what it's dismissing. That's a strategy, not a reckoning.
Justice systems run their course. Settlements happen. Life goes on, people move to Nashville, people post about gratitude. Fine. But if you're going to break your silence and imply that the facts vindicated you, you probably want to be ready for the follow-up questions. Like, say, why the judge let three of Lively's claims survive. Or what exactly you're planning to say to that eight-million-dollar bill on Monday.
