Why Justin Baldoni’s Attorney Can’t Lose
Justin Baldoni’s fate in his clash over It Ends With Us with Blake Lively is yet to be determined. But one thing’s certain. His lawyer Bryan Freedman is already victorious.
Put aside the billable-hour payday: Baldoni’s co-defendant and partner in production company Wayfarer, the billionaire Steve Sarowitz, has reportedly pledged $100 million to their defense. This case has supersized the entertainment attorney — already so high-profile for his troubled-celebrity client roster that he netted a 2024 Hollywood Reporter cover profile even before Lively’s allegations went public — into a household name akin to his similarly TMZ-tight legal compatriot Mark Geragos.
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It’s a testament to Freedman that, so far, his client’s battle with one of Hollywood’s most powerful couples still remains a draw. Many observers expected Baldoni to apologize and quickly disappear after Lively coldcocked him in December via a blockbuster New York Times story, co-bylined by Megan Twohey, one of the key instigating reporters of the #MeToo movement.
Instead, Freedman went on the warpath, threatening to sue “anyone involved … into oblivion” (he’s since filed a $250 million defamation claim against the paper), dumping documents he’s termed “receipts” on a public website and issuing so many aggressive statements to the media that Lively’s legal team begged a judge to rein him in. Meanwhile, Baldoni, who in recent years had emerged as one of America’s foremost male feminists, has received crucial support from an ideologically unlikely mix of supporters with massive media platforms and one thing in common: They’re also Freedman clients.
Freedman has always seen himself as the attack dog for the underdogs. Sure, he may represent wealthy figures known for their fame and charisma — but his most notable battles have typically been waged against large corporations whom he views as the true Goliaths. In this dispute with Lively, he’s sought to portray her as the establishment figure, part of an insidious and powerful Hollywood web along with her pop-star friend Taylor Swift (or perhaps former friend, if the tabloids are to be believed), and more consequentially, her actor-producer husband, Ryan Reynolds.
Litigating as he often does in the court of public opinion, Freedman knows that people prefer to identify with scrappy outsiders against institutional insiders: Katniss Everdeen, Luke Skywalker, Erin Brockovich. His MO is to position his clients, and himself, within today’s favored narratives of oppression and marginalization. (He’s told THR that his intense “protective streak” can be traced to unspecified childhood trauma.) In Freedman’s framing, Lively is the popular mean girl, Baldoni the guileless picked-on good guy.
Of course, an important part of fighting in the media is fighting with the media. While Freedman feeds his favored press outlets tip-offs on filings and colorful statements, confident that friendly voices on social platforms will in turn amplify his message, those who run counter to his interests know they’ll face his ire.
“Yashar writing an article about you,” Freedman wrote me after THR published coverage he didn’t like about his earlier litigation against Baldoni for alleged script theft from a man with cystic fibrosis. The subtext wasn’t subtle, claiming to have deployed a former client, the online influencer and self-styled muckraker Yashar Ali, against a wayward member of the press. (Freedman had previously represented Ali in a failed defamation suit against THR co-editor-in-chief Maer Roshan when he helmed Los Angeles magazine.) Later, when Freedman learned that THR would be scrutinizing his relationship with a controversial consultant whom Lively has accused of plotting to unfairly warp social media sentiment around the conflict, he protested that this publication was in league with Reynolds because his Deadpool & Wolverine business partners Disney and Marvel advertise in THR.
Freedman’s noisy belligerence sets him apart from his more buttoned-down Hollywood legal peers. He’s often been compared to Marty Singer, who also bills for the bark, either through long letters notoriously demanding that recipients “govern yourself accordingly,” or by shouting over the phone. There’s a knowing performative element to Singer’s pique, yet Freedman’s passion appears genuine, even personal. And while some professional colleagues recoil at his style, and even his substance, it’s endeared him to clients who appreciate his willingness to engage in today’s variant of public trial by combat.
For Freedman, win or lose, the result is never Pyrrhic. His legend — and his practice’s docket — only grows.
Read more stories from The Hollywood Reporter’s Lively vs. Baldoni digital package:
Justin Baldoni’s Leap of Faith
Lively vs. Baldoni Has Already “Changed Hollywood Publicity Forever”
A Timeline of the Justin Baldoni-Blake Lively ‘It Ends With Us’ Legal Battle
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