Ryan Reynolds claims Justin Baldoni can’t sue due to “hurt feelings”
Ryan Reynolds is asking a court to dismiss a case brought against him by Justin Baldoni, saying that the star and director of It Ends with Us cannot sue him over “hurt feelings.”
This is just the latest development in a lengthy legal fight that began on the set of the film last summer in which actor Blake Lively, who is married to Reynolds, accused Baldoni of sexual harassment. She has also alleged that he orchestrated a smear campaign to tarnish her reputation after rumours about his on-set behaviour became public.
The dispute has extended beyond Baldoni and Lively to include everyone from the New York Times, who published an explosive report on Lively’s allegations, to some of the executives behind the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Baldoni’s case against Reynolds stems from a character in Reynolds’s recent box office hit Deadpool & Wolverine. Nicepool bore an obvious similarity to the actor and satirised male feminism, which Baldoni, who once hosted a podcast about feminism, alleged was a reference to him.
In a motion to dismiss the suit, Reynolds’s lawyers did not deny that Nicepool was based on the It Ends with Us director but invoked the actor’s First Amendment right to free speech and claimed that it was not defamatory if Reynolds believed the comparisons to be true.
The “allegations suggest that Mr Reynolds genuinely, perhaps passionately, believes that Mr Baldoni’s behaviour is reflective of a ‘predator,'” the motion stated (via Variety). “[T]he law establishes that calling someone a ‘predator’ amounts to constitutionally protected opinion… While Mr Baldoni ‘may not appreciate being called’ a predator, those hurt feelings do not give rise to legal claims.”
The motion also pointed to Baldoni’s past comments about overstepping the line with women in his younger days, saying, “It would be perverse to permit Mr Baldoni to build an entire brand — complete with a podcast, Ted Talk, and books — off of his confessions of repeatedly mistreating women, only to turn around and sue Mr. Reynolds for $400 million for simply pointing out in private what Mr. Baldoni has bragged about in public.”
The ongoing legal battle between Baldoni, Lively, Reynolds, and others has caused such a media frenzy that there is now a documentary set to be released about it, long before the parties have had their day in court which isn’t set to occur for another 12 months.
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