Ladies, gentlemen, cineastes: our long nightmare is over. The It Ends With Us legal drama has finally Ended With Us. In a first-person-plural statement on behalf of Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni, snuck out as a horde of nippled breastplates swarmed up the Met Gala carpet, our pair of ferociously feuding actors were forced to remind the wider public that, actually, their insanely costly legal binfire had always been about two creatives graciously shining their combined lights on the issue of domestic violence. “The end product – the movie It Ends With Us – is a source of pride to all of us who worked to bring it to life,” ran yesterday’s formal epilogue on a case even Pyrrhus would have settled 12 months ago. “Raising awareness, and making a meaningful impact in the lives of domestic-violence survivors – and all survivors – is a goal that we stand behind.”
Note that gorgeously magnanimous “and all survivors” – so if you survived a plane crash, or Glastonbury, or even your best friend’s hen weekend, then this one was for you too. You’re welcome, victims! And if it took up to eight figures in legal fees to get here, and if that would have bought a lot of women’s shelters, then yeah – no doubt Blake and Justin are sorry for simply caring too much. It’s a cross to bear.
Though the settlement came as a surprise to many, Blake v Justin was a battle that had, in recent weeks, ceded valuable column inches to alternative conflicts such as the US v Iran in the strait of Hormuz. A unilaterally launched fool’s errand with no exit strategy that threatens to suck even neutrals into its destructive vortex? Amazing that Lively-Baldoni was eventually bumped down to No 2 in that particular chart.
Anyway, I guess we can avoid a recap no longer. Mercifully, space constraints preclude an exhaustive rehash of what was quite simply the defining Hollywood feud of its era. But as a brief reminder, this case started with alleged behind-the-scenes conflict on It Ends With Us, a 2024 movie adapted from the Colleen Hoover bestseller, which itself proved to be a smash hit. Baldoni, a Ted-Talking male feminist, directed and starred. Lively – a bigger star – played the lead. It escalated quickly into lawsuits and countersuits alleging harassment and industrial online smear campaigns, forcing the disclosure of private messages where – among others – Lively’s husband, Ryan Reynolds, and (erstwhile?) BFF Taylor Swift were shown getting extremely stuck in. Details of the settlement have not been made public, so we don’t really know how it ended.
Other than eye-wateringly expensively and professionally dreadfully for everyone involved. Three and a half years ago, Lively and Baldoni had never even met; now they are part of each other’s CVs for the rest of their (hobbled) careers. What began with supportive co-stars saying things such as “as woke as we both are” (Lively) or offering to assuage the other’s sore throat by sending over his “medical intuitive” (Baldoni), swiftly degenerated into what came across as a series of grotesque power plays, diverse forms of weirdness and creepiness, four-way accusations of narcissism and at least one trip to Mexico for restorative stem cells. Within less than a year, the case became the centrepiece of a keynote address at CPAC, the major annual gathering of conservatives in the US.
Meanwhile, so much had been struck out by various judges along the way that had this thing actually finally got to trial, a significant portion of that multimillion-dollar-a-week shitshow would have been taken up with Lively and her representatives taking the stand to explain precisely how commercially toxic she had become. I mean … did they want to get into this? When they really thought it through?
As things stand now, it’s just conceivable that Baldoni might one day make the odd low-budget film, while Lively will be hoping her next project doesn’t tank, although her own husband and at least one movie executive have suggested she might never act again. It was Reynolds who initially, it was claimed, saw to it that Baldoni was dropped by their mutual talent agency (denied by the agency), and it must be said that the blast radius of this case also includes Reynolds, who is no longer quite the Teflon A-lister he was before it kicked off.
As is the fashion of the era, we must now ask ourselves: what did we learn? There was a standout lesson, and I’m afraid it is the same one we’ve taken in this column before. To wit: never litigate. Unless there genuinely is absolutely no alternative, avoid litigation at almost all costs. Seriously, DO NOT LITIGATE. Unless a criminal trial demands your participation – in which case, my commiserations/condemnations – then do not, under any circumstances, think that “your day in court” is anything other than a toxic energy-suck that will dominate your every waking moment, probably for years, or that Lady Justice is anything other than a gold-digger with whom you regrettably do not want to get involved. No shade on her personally; I’m sure she’d be lovely if she weren’t mixed up in the legal world.
The other lesson is also increasingly familiar, and that is that Hollywood’s old ways are demonstrably no match for the internet. The shadowy currents of the online world proved themselves far greater and deadlier than any of the industry’s traditional image and legal tools, and ultimately impossible to control. It didn’t end with the settlement of Lively-Baldoni – in fact, it feels like it might only just have started.
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Marina Hyde’s new book, What a Time to be Alive!, is out in September (Guardian Faber Publishing, £20). To support the Guardian, order your signed copy at guardianbookshop.com. Delivery charges may apply
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Marina Hyde is a Guardian columnist
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