Highlights
- Blake Lively was awarded more than $400,000 in legal fees, far below the $8 million she requested.
- The judge criticised the number of hours claimed and noted missing invoices.
- Emily Baldoni has spoken publicly about the emotional toll of the legal battle.
“What could something like this even happen?” Emily Baldoni asked in a video shared on Instagram in July, reflecting on the lengthy legal battle involving her husband, Justin Baldoni, and Blake Lively.
Her comments came as the dispute continued to attract attention more than a year after it began. The case started in December 2024, when Lively accused Baldoni of sexual harassment and creating a hostile work environment on the set of It Ends With Us. Baldoni subsequently filed a counter-defamation lawsuit against Lively.
The legal battle continued for months before the two sides reached a settlement in May, just weeks before the case was due to go to trial.
For Emily, the experience was not simply a courtroom dispute. She described the period as one in which she and Baldoni had been forced to wrestle with difficult questions about how the situation had unfolded.
Judge rejects most of Lively’s legal fee request
The latest development came on Wednesday, when Judge Lewis Liman ruled on the remaining dispute over attorneys’ fees and costs.
Lively had sought around $8 million in legal fees from the prolonged case. Instead, Liman awarded her $363,245.40 in attorneys’ fees and $44,206.35 in costs, bringing the total to more than $400,000.
The judge said Lively was entitled only to “reasonable” fees. While he found that her lawyers’ billing rates were not unreasonable given the complexity of the case, he concluded that the number of hours claimed was excessive.
“The number of hours for which Lively seeks reimbursement is unreasonable,” Liman said.
The judge also pointed to incomplete documentation. Lively submitted a declaration from an attorney fee expert who had reviewed the billing records, but the actual invoices were not submitted to the court.
“Lively has not submitted the invoices themselves,” Liman noted.
A case that has continued beyond the courtroom
Although the settlement brought the main legal dispute between Lively and Baldoni to an end, the case has continued to generate public discussion.
In July, Emily and Baldoni spoke about what they described as the personal impact of the proceedings. Emily questioned how the situation could have unfolded while being presented as a fight for women.
Lively, meanwhile, has not publicly addressed the legal battle since the settlement. She has continued to appear at major public events, including the Met Gala and the World Cup final.
The latest ruling now resolves the remaining issue of Lively’s legal fees, bringing another chapter of the high-profile dispute to a close. But the emotional consequences described by those involved show how the case extended far beyond the courtroom.
