{"id":2246330,"date":"2026-01-22T23:46:26","date_gmt":"2026-01-22T23:46:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/?p=2246330"},"modified":"2026-01-22T23:46:26","modified_gmt":"2026-01-22T23:46:26","slug":"justin-baldonis-team-cites-heated-rivalry-in-bid-to-dismiss-blake-livelys-lawsuit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/justin-baldonis-team-cites-heated-rivalry-in-bid-to-dismiss-blake-livelys-lawsuit\/","title":{"rendered":"Justin Baldoni&#8217;s team cites &#8216;Heated Rivalry&#8217; in bid to dismiss Blake Lively&#8217;s lawsuit"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<div>\n<p>Justin Baldoni\u2019s attorney boldly cited \u201cHeated Rivalry\u201d in court on Thursday, in an effort to dismiss Blake Lively\u2019s sexual harassment claims against the actor.<\/p>\n<p>Attorney Jonathan Bach brought up \u201cHeated Rivalry\u201d when discussing Lively\u2019s claim that Baldoni touched her without her consent while improvising during an intimate scene for \u201cIt Ends With Us,\u201d <a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/variety.com\/2026\/film\/news\/justin-baldoni-heated-rivalry-blake-lively-it-ends-with-us-1236638167\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Variety reported. <\/a><\/p>\n<p>Bach drew laughter from the court when he asked, \u201cI don\u2019t know if the court is familiar with the show \u2018Heated Rivalry,&#8217;\u201d the outlet reported.<\/p>\n<p>After Judge Lewis Liman said that he wasn\u2019t familiar, Bach explained that the queer hockey romance contained explicit scenes and that <a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/variety.com\/2025\/tv\/columns\/hudson-williams-heated-rivalry-finale-sex-scene-improvised-1236617813\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">the male actors \u2014 Connor Storrie and Hudson Williams \u2014 improvised<\/a>. <\/p>\n<figure class=\"nyp-slideshow-modal-image wp-block-image aligncenter size-large\"><figcaption>Justin Baldoni\u2019s team cited \u201cHeated Rivalry\u201d in court on Thursday. <span class=\"credit\">REUTERS<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<figure class=\"nyp-slideshow-modal-image wp-block-image aligncenter size-large\"><figcaption>Baldoni\u2019s attorney Jonathan Bach brought up the smash hit, noting that the show\u2019s stars \u2014 Hudson Williams and Connor Storrie \u2014 improvised sex scenes. <span class=\"credit\">sabrina lantos<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<figure class=\"nyp-slideshow-modal-image wp-block-image aligncenter size-large\"><figcaption>Bach argued that if male actors can improvise sex scenes, Lively couldn\u2019t make the argument that she faced gender-based harassment. <span class=\"credit\">Crave\/HBO<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<aside class=\"single__inline-module aligncenter wp-block-nypost-editor-primary-tag\">\n<\/aside>\n<p>Bach argued that if male actors are able to improvise sex scenes there couldn\u2019t be a complaint of gender-based discrimination, and also claimed that any touching between Baldoni and Lively came from the relationship of their characters in the film, and had nothing to do with her being a woman.<\/p>\n<p>He further argued that Lively signed up for \u201cIt Ends With Us\u201d knowing that the film would feature \u201chot and sexy scenes,\u201d and that her complaints\u00a0were \u201csmall potatoes\u201d that did not constitute to sexual harassment.<\/p>\n<p>One of Lively\u2019s attorneys, Esra Hudson, pushed back on Bach\u2019s argument, telling the court that Lively was  \u201ckissed, nuzzled and touched\u201d in ways she didn\u2019t consent to \u2014 regardless of knowing she would be acting in intimate scenes, Variety reported.<\/p>\n<p>Liman also pushed back on Bach\u2019s argument, noting that the film\u2019s sexual subject matter didn\u2019t give Baldoni the right to touch Lively however he wanted without her consent, to which Bach replied that \u201ccontext matters.\u201d<\/p>\n<figure class=\"nyp-slideshow-modal-image wp-block-image aligncenter size-large\"><figcaption>In her lawsuit, Lively accused Baldoni of touching her without her consent while he improvised during filming an intimate scene. <span class=\"credit\">\u00a9Sony Pictures\/Courtesy Everett Collection<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<figure class=\"nyp-slideshow-modal-image wp-block-image aligncenter size-large\"><figcaption>Lively\u2019s lawyer Esra Hudson said the actress was \u201ckissed, nuzzled and touched\u201d in ways she didn\u2019t consent to. <span class=\"credit\">GC Images<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>In Lively\u2019s <a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/pagesix.com\/2025\/12\/20\/celebrity-news\/blake-livelys-lawyers-blast-justin-baldonis-team-over-disruptive-deposition-behavior\/\">lawsuit against Baldoni<\/a>, she claimed that he sexually harassed her on the set of \u201cIt Ends With Us.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>In court docs obtained by Page Six, she alleged that during the filming of \u201ca slow dance scene for a montage in which no sound was recorded,\u201d Baldoni \u201cleaned forward and slowly dragged his lips from her ear and down her neck as he said, \u2018It smells so good\u2019\u2026 When Ms. Lively later objected to this behavior, Mr. Baldoni\u2019s response was, \u2018I\u2019m not even attracted to you.&#8217;\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Baldoni\u2019s attorney Bryan Freedman later <a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/pagesix.com\/2025\/01\/21\/celebrity-news\/justin-baldoni-releases-raw-it-ends-with-us-footage-to-refute-blake-livelys-sexual-harassment-allegations\/\">released behind-the-scenes footage <\/a>of him and Lively shooting the slow-dancing scene in an effort to refute her sexual harassment allegations.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"nyp-slideshow-modal-image wp-block-image aligncenter size-large\"><figcaption>In her lawsuit, Lively claimed that after she objected to Baldoni\u2019s behavior on set, he told her he was not even attracted to her. <span class=\"credit\">GC Images<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<figure class=\"nyp-slideshow-modal-image wp-block-image aligncenter size-large\"><figcaption>Baldoni\u2019s team released behind-the-scenes footage of the scene in question in January 2025, claiming that it showed both Baldoni and Lively behaving professionally. <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>\u201cThe scene in question was designed to show the two characters falling in love and longing to be close to one another. Both actors are clearly behaving well within the scope of the scene and with mutual respect and professionalism,\u201d Freedman\u2019s statement to Page Six read.<\/p>\n<p>Back in December, Williams \u2014 who plays Shane Hollander in \u201cHeated Rivalry\u201d \u2014 joked that his close relationship with Storrie (who plays Ilya Rozanov) was <a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/pagesix.com\/2025\/12\/12\/entertainment\/heated-rivalry-hunk-hudson-williams-jokes-real-life-relationship-with-co-star-connor-storrie-is-a-nightmare-for-hr\/\">a \u201cnightmare for HR.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe got comfortable just being inches from each other\u2019s face and invading each other\u2019s personal space,\u201d Williams told Vanity Fair. \u201cA nightmare for HR.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><em> \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n<p><em> \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source pagesix.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Justin Baldoni\u2019s attorney boldly cited \u201cHeated Rivalry\u201d in court on Thursday, in an effort to dismiss Blake Lively\u2019s sexual harassment claims against the actor. Attorney Jonathan Bach brought up \u201cHeated Rivalry\u201d when discussing Lively\u2019s claim that Baldoni touched her without her consent while improvising during an intimate scene for \u201cIt Ends With Us,\u201d Variety reported. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2246331,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25177],"tags":[25078,350799,24003,346815,419961,274219,21912,21913],"class_list":["post-2246330","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-celebrities","tag-blake-lively","tag-celebrity-lawsuits","tag-celebrity-news","tag-court","tag-heated-rivalry","tag-justin-baldoni","tag-movies","tag-tv"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/Justin-Baldonis-team-cites-Heated-Rivalry-in-bid-to-dismiss.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2246330","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2246330"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2246330\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2246332,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2246330\/revisions\/2246332"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2246331"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2246330"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2246330"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2246330"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}