Justin Baldoni once claimed that Blake Lively was trying to set him “up for a trap” while filming 2024’s It Ends With Us by not using a body double, according to new unsealed text messages.
In legal documents filed by Lively’s management company, WME, on Monday, January 5, and obtained by Us Weekly, a text exchange between Baldoni, 41, and his former WME agent Danny Greenberg, detailed his on-set worries on December 30, 2023.
“Hey man, had a really really bad week,” Baldoni, who directed and starred opposite Lively, 38, in It Ends With Us, began before recapping the pair’s alleged interactions. “She [Lively] had the audacity to email me directly and invite me to a meeting at her house alone if I chose. She’s refused a body double which now Sony [the film’s distributor] and Todd [Black, a producer on the film] have to jump in to make sure that happens because that’s just setting me up for a trap. Although she’s making me have one.”
Baldoni’s texts, which were made public as part of a motion filed by WME which requested, as part of Lively’s sexual harassment lawsuit against Baldoni, that the court keep the texts and additional private communications sealed, included further claims against Lively by Baldoni. “She’s rejected all my Story Boards for the sex scenes … she’s trying to keep all of … our clothes on for the big love scene, which is just ridiculous if you know the book,” he wrote. “The whole thing is just a gigantic cluster f*** and yet I’m doing my best to stay positive, although it’s been very draining on me and time-consuming over this break to be dealing with an actress who is rewriting the writer and Director.”
Baldoni’s body double, Thomas Canestraro, told the Daily Mail in June 2025 that he experienced “discomfort from everybody” while working on It Ends With Us.
Lively, meanwhile, filed her lawsuit against Baldoni and his production company, Wayfarer Studios, in December 2024 on grounds of alleged sexual harassment, retaliation and a smear campaign crafted to destroy her career.
Baldoni has denied all allegations made against him and filed a countersuit the following month that requested $400 million in damages and claimed he was subjected to civil extortion, defamation, false light invasion of privacy and more. His countersuit was also lodged against Lively’s husband, Ryan Reynolds, and her publicist Leslie Sloane. A judge dismissed the countersuit in June 2025, with Lively’s original lawsuit set to go to trial in New York City in March.
Baldoni’s text exchange continued, “I’ve gone through the whole script, I’m giving her 95 percent of what she wants for peace but this is just a brutal experience.”
After several responses from Greenberg that discussed possible mediation options, Baldoni wrote back, “I’m doing my best to just stay positive and give her as many wins as possible to just finish this thing but it’s gonna be tough at some point Warren [Zavala, a WME talent agent] needs to know that she is destroying her reputation.”
The director concluded, “Where we will need the most help is during the edit because I’m not going to get everything she wants and I foresee that being a big issue.”
Five days after the texts were exchanged, Lively, who also served as a producer on It Ends With Us, called an in-person meeting that was attended by Baldoni, Black, Reynolds, 49, Sony executive Ange Gianetti, fellow producer Alex Saks and Wayfarer Studios CEO, Jamey Heath. Through their respective legal filings over the past year, Baldoni and Lively have both presented differing versions of what the January 4, 2024, meeting entailed.
