Blake Lively won a far smaller fee award than she asked for on Wednesday, after U.S. District Judge Lewis J. Liman said she can recover about $400,000 from Justin Baldoni’s production company. Lively had sought more than $8 million in attorneys’ fees and costs, but the judge cut the request sharply and rejected part of what she wanted for media relations and travel.
The ruling gives Lively a money judgment in the fight that grew out of It Ends With Us, even though the larger dispute between her and Baldoni was settled in early May. Liman had already dismissed Baldoni’s defamation and extortion lawsuit against her, and the fee award follows a California #MeToo-era law that allowed her to seek financial damages after that dismissal.
In her fee request, Lively asked for $8,035,040.88, including $7,495,526.87 in attorneys’ fees and $539,514.01 in costs. Liman awarded $363,245.40 in attorneys’ fees and $44,206.35 in costs. In the order, he wrote that counsel’s rates were not unreasonable, but that the number of hours billed for reimbursement was not. That is where much of the gap came from.
The reduction also reflects a narrower view of what counted as recoverable. The judge declined to grant some of the media relations expenses and travel costs Lively had included, leaving her with only a fraction of the amount she sought. That matters because her legal team had framed the fight as a test of accountability, not a financial dispute.
Esra Hudson and Michael Gottlieb said, “Blake Lively’s case was never about money — it was about accountability.” They added that she “lifted the curtain for other victims” and that the result showed “the legal system is not as easily manipulated as social media.” Their language was aimed at a broader battle over the public narrative, not just the fee bill.
The background still cuts both ways. Lively accused Baldoni of sexual harassment during the 2024 production of It Ends With Us and said Wayfarer Studios retaliated after she complained about misconduct on set. Baldoni denied her claims and, in January 2025, countersued Lively and Ryan Reynolds, alleging defamation and extortion and saying they tried to “seize control” of the movie. He also sued over an article headlined “We Can Bury Anyone: Inside a Hollywood Smear Machine.”
What is left unanswered is not whether Lively got paid, but how much more of the dispute can still be reopened in court. The settlement terms were not disclosed, and a source familiar with the matter previously confirmed to NBC News that no money changed hands. For now, the judge has put a dollar figure on one part of the fight and left the rest of it where it has been for months: unresolved in public, and closed only on paper.
