The NYT filing is an anti-SLAPP (Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation) suit in response to Baldoni’s defamation suit against the paper, which was tossed out in June. The filing cites New York’s anti-SLAPP law, which states that a defendant who faces such a suit (which is “used to inhibit the exercise of free speech and harass publishers by forcing them to expend time and resources on baseless litigation”) has the right “to recover damages, including costs and attorney’s fees from any person who ‘commenced or continued’ such an action ‘without a substantial basis in fact and law.'”
The New York Times was dragged into Justin Baldoni’s feud with Blake Lively via the outlet’s bombshell report about the smear campaign Wayfarer allegedly engaged against Lively, which was published in December 2024. In its new suit, the NYT contends that the court “held that any statements in the article and video reporting on the alleged sexual misconduct experienced by Lively were not actionable because they were based on the CRD complaint and therefore were subject to New York’s fair report privilege and separately ‘were not plausibly made with actual malice.’ As for Times‘s statements about the smear campaign, the District Court found, to the extent they fell outside the privilege because they relied upon communications not included in the CRD Complaint, they were not plausibly made with actual malice.”
The paper of record seeks “reasonable costs, attorney’s fees, and disbursements,” which Deadline reports in the range of $150,000, plus “such other and further relief as this Court deems just and proper.” Team Baldoni is obviously displeased, with the actor’s typically cutthroat attorney Bryan Freedman suggesting a war with the entire media establishment. “Win, lose, or draw, we refuse to cave to power brokers even in the face of seemingly impossible odds,” Freedman said in a statement (via Deadline). “We continue to stand tall for a reason: the pursuit of truth, in the face of giants. Our unwillingness to compromise our values, no matter the odds or the outcome, reflects a simple conviction that standing up for the truth and what is right matters. If the current laws protect legacy media in this manner, perhaps it’s up to us to ignite that change.”
“The New York Times filed a suit against Justin Baldoni’s production company, Wayfarer Studios, to obtain reimbursement of The Times’s legal fees from their baseless libel suit, which has now been dismissed by a federal judge,” the NYT‘s Communications SVP Danielle Rhoades Ha told Deadline. “New York law allows publishers to recover their fees when they are targeted by suits designed to silence them. That is precisely what happened here. Our journalists covered carefully and fairly a story of public importance, and Wayfarer and Baldoni should pay for having tried to misuse the courts and mislead the public.”
