Justin Baldoni'sIt Ends With UsProducer Likened Dispute with Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds to Israel-Hamas War

Mar. 15, 2025

Justin Baldoni, Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds pictured.Photo:Gotham/WireImage; Gotham/GC Images

Gotham/WireImage; Gotham/GC Images

Blake Livelyis alleging in heramended complaintthat anIt Ends With Usexecutive producer, who worked with director and costarJustin Baldoni’s production company, made threats against her and her family.

She claims that despite the film making “a lot of money” after its release, Sarowitz told a witness who worked with Wayfarer on an unrelated project that if Lively and Reynolds “ever cross the line, ever, then I will go after them.”

“I will protect the studio like Israel protected itself from Hamas. There were 39,000 dead bodies. There will be two dead bodies when I’m done. Minimum,” he allegedly said, per the complaint.

“Not dead, but ‘you’re dead to me.’ So that kind of dead. But dead to a lot of people,” he continued, according to the complaint. “If they ever get me to that point. Then I’ll make it worth their while. Because I’m gonna spend a lot of money to make sure the studio is protected.”

Lively also claimed that the multi-billionaire “backed” the “multi-tiered plan” “designed to ‘destroy’” her reputation, and divulged to a witness at theNew York premiereof the movie on Aug. 6, 2024 that “he was prepared to spend $100 million to ruin the lives of Ms. Lively and her family.”

PEOPLE has reached out to Sarowitz for comment on Lively’s amended complaint.

“Her underwhelming amended complaint is filled with unsubstantial hearsay of unnamed persons who are clearly no longer willing to come forward or publicly support her claims,” he added. “Since documents do not lie and people do, the upcoming depositions of those who initially supported Ms. Lively’s false claims and those who are witnesses to her own behavior will be enlightening. What is truly uncomfortable here is Ms. Lively’s lack of actual evidence."

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Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni in It Ends With Us.Nicole Rivelli

Nicole Rivelli

TheGossip Girlalum filed the updated complaint in New York federal court late on Tuesday, Feb. 18. According to her lawyers Esra Hudson and Mike Gottlieb, this version “provides significant additional evidence and corroboration of her original claims” and “includes previously undisclosed communications” involving Lively, Sony, Wayfarer Studios and “numerous other witnesses.”

At one point in the amended complaint, Lively’s lawyers write that Baldoni and the other defendants' “false narrative crumbles under the indisputable truth” that Lively “was not alone in complaining about Mr. Baldoni and raised her concerns contemporaneously as they arose in 2023, not in connection with some imagined power play for control of the film in 2024.”

A spokesperson for Lively says the amended complaint “details the corroboration that backs up Blake’s original sexual harassment and retaliation concerns.” The spokesperson claims it shows that “other women confided in Blake about their discomfort and fear of coming forward, and their concern about the current public vitriol.”

On Jan. 31, Baldoni, 41, amended his own countersuit against Lively, Ryan Reynolds, their publicist andThe New York Times, which hepublished on a website for his followers to accesshis court filings.

At a pre-trial hearing earlier in February, U.S. District Judge Lewis J. Limanwarned both parties not to litigate their suits through the mediaand that he could set an earlier trial date if the public relations battle continues.

Lively and Baldoni’s case is currentlyset to go to trial in March 2026. Attorneys for both sides recentlyopted out of mediation.

source: people.com