Justin Baldoni and his wife, Emily Baldoni, are speaking out on their new normal after his legal battle with Blake Lively was settled.
“We have not done this in a while, so we have not spoken publicly for the better part of the last two years and it’s not because we haven’t had anything to say,” Justin, 42, began an Instagram video shared Wednesday, July 8. “Lord knows we have, but it just felt like every time we went to make a video like this where we wanted to speak, something was telling us not to. It just doesn’t feel like the right time. We were talking about it and feeling into it and praying about it.”
Emily, 41, chimed in, revealing that “this feels like the moment” to speak out.
“That being said, there is so much to say and it makes it hard to speak, it makes it hard to figure out what is right for us for this specific moment,” Emily noted. “But what does feel important is that we can genuinely say that we are sitting here today feeling immense gratitude for so many things and so many people and so many people that have happened to us.”
In late 2023, Justin was named in a lawsuit by his It Ends With Us costar Lively, 38, who accused the director of sexual harassment, fostering a hostile work environment and attempting to destroy her reputation. Justin vehemently denied the accusations, subsequently filing a defamation suit against Lively, which was ultimately dismissed by a judge.
In the midst of the legal battle, Justin and Emily refrained from speaking publicly. The Jane the Virgin alum further noted on Wednesday that gratitude “saved” the couple, who share two children.
“I also feel that it’s important as we say that, in that gratitude, it doesn’t negate the injustice and the pain that we have also felt in the last few years,” Emily continued. “We’ve had to wrestle with so many things and try to understand so many things, like, ‘How could something like this even happen?’ Let alone disguise[d] as a fight for women. So much to unpack, and the truth is that there’s been a lot of trauma for us to move through as a family, which also makes it hard to speak.”
Justin further acknowledged that there have been many “painful things that have been spoken into existence” as a result of the lengthy legal battle.
“That created so much noise and we didn’t want to add to the noise,” he explained of the couple’s reasons for staying quiet. “We just wanted to let the justice system run its course.”
A judge ruled in May to dismiss the majority of Lively’s lawsuit claims. The rest were settled within weeks before the pair were expected to begin trial.
“The truth and the facts have spoken for themselves,” Emily stated on Wednesday. “And here we are.”
In the months since the legal drama concluded, Justin and Emily have been focused on “healing.”
“We are healing, and if you’ve ever been through something traumatic, you know that healing isn’t linear,” Justin said. “It looks different every day, and we have had to rethink for ourselves what is real and what matters and it’s this, it’s our family, it’s our friends, it’s our community [who] have been there for us, it’s our faith.”
He continued, “I think we’re closer and more devoted and steadfast in our faith that we’ve ever been. Also, and this has been on both of our hearts, there were so many of you who, when we didn’t have a voice, were our voice. … So many of you had discernment and you used your intuition and you trusted that, and you have given your time to fight for us. Thank you does not feel like enough, but we’re here in large part because of so many of you and all of our friends and family.”
According to Justin, he and his wife learned one major lesson from the ordeal.
“One thing that we learned is that when God presses the reset button and everything else is stripped away, that’s when love shows up,” he said. “And we feel so loved.”
Justin and Emily closed out their four-minute video, stressing that they will have “more to say” in due course.
“That time will come,” Emily noted. “For now, we are going to focus on continuing the healing and hanging out with our kiddos and enjoying life.”
