The case involving actress Blake Lively and her former “It Ends with Us” director and co-star Justin Baldoni, whom she has accused of sexually harassing her during the film’s fraught production, will have its first day in court on Monday, a hearing that comes after the complex saga has been subject to weeks of dissection in the court of public opinion by social media spectators.

Neither Baldoni nor Lively are expected to be present, a source with knowledge of the planned proceeding previously told CNN.

How we got here

Baldoni – a writer, director and producer who also built a brand around encouraging men to be better allies to women – and Lively have been in a legal battle that began in December, when Lively accused him of sexual harassment and retaliation in a complaint first filed with the California Civil Rights Department, preceding a civil lawsuit that followed about a week later.

Baldoni, meanwhile, has denied Lively’s allegations. Last month, he filed a lawsuit against Lively and her husband Ryan Reynolds, accusing them of civil extortion, defamation and invasion of privacy.

At the time, Lively’s lawyer’s told CNN in a statement that Baldoni’s suit “is another chapter in the abuser playbook. This is an age-old story: A woman speaks up with concrete evidence of sexual harassment and retaliation and the abuser attempts to turn the tables on the victim.”

Both Baldoni and Lively provided in their suits text messages they say make their cases. Baldoni’s team also released video footage from the actors’ time working together and, on Saturday, published a website with his amended complaint and a timeline of the film’s production. Baldoni was also heard in an audio recording published by TMZ apologizing to Lively, reportedly sent while they were working on the project.

CNN has not independently verified the text messages included in either Baldoni or Lively’s lawsuits, nor the audio recording.

Baldoni’s lawsuit claims that Lively, who is best known for her work on the CW’s “Gossip Girl” and in “The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants” films, sought to take over much of the film’s creative direction, including having Reynolds re-write a scene to make “unauthorized changes to the script in secret.” (Reynolds had no formal role on “It Ends With Us.”)

The suit claims that Lively “summoned” Baldoni to the penthouse she shares with Reynolds in New York City for a meeting about the script, where Reynolds, along with a “megacelebrity friend” of the couple, praised Lively’s proposed revisions to the script.

One of the text messages included in Baldoni’s suit appears to show an exchange between Baldoni and Lively about her proposed script changes: “I really love what you did. It really does help a lot. Makes it so much more fun and interesting. (And I would have felt that way without Ryan and Taylor),” he wrote with a wink emoji.

While Baldoni’s text message does not include a last name for “Taylor,” Lively is close friends with the artist Taylor Swift. CNN previously reached out to representatives for Baldoni, Lively, Reynolds and Taylor Swift to inquire whether the “Taylor” mentioned in Baldoni’s text is, in fact, Swift.

In one of Lively’s text messages in Baldoni’s suit, the actress makes reference to her friends, stating, “If you ever get around to watching ‘Game of Thrones,’ you’ll appreciate that I’m Khaleesi, and like her, I happen to have a few dragons.”

Baldoni has also sued the New York Times for $250 million, accusing the newspaper of working alongside Lively’s team to publish a one-sided article that benefited Lively and contained doctored evidence.

The New York Times has denied Baldoni’s allegations and said it stands by its reporting.

A public feud

The legal filings in this case are only part of the story. Representatives for Lively and Baldoni have continued to spar over the information being provided to the public outside of court.

Lively’s lawyers have accused Baldoni’s attorney, Bryan Freedman, of making “misleading and selective” statements about Lively and her ongoing legal dispute with Baldoni, and previously asked the judge in their case for a hearing “to address the appropriate conduct of counsel moving forward.” This and other issues are expected to be addressed in Monday’s hearing.

In the letter, filed after footage from the set was released by Baldoni’s team, Lively’s lawyers say two cease-and-desist letters have been filed since her initial complaint. The first was issued to “The Wayfarer Parties,” which includes members of Baldoni’s production company, Wayfarer Studios, and members of Baldoni’s publicity team.

<div data-uri="cms.cnn.com/_components/video-resource/instances/cm6o6cm0g000d3b5zbuj2pt8i@published" data-component-name="video-resource" data-editable="settings" class="video-resource" data-fixed-ratio="16×9" data-parent-uri="cms.cnn.com/_components/video-resource/instances/cm51jaqc200003b9i91bl26fl@published" data-video-id="me22819cfcab14a164e9da12cb9bf5421c099cf645" data-media-id="me22819cfcab14a164e9da12cb9bf5421c099cf645" data-live data-analytics-aggregate-events="true" data-custom-experience data-asset-type="hlsTs" data-auth-type="none" data-content-type="mediasource-clip" data-medium-env data-autostart="disabled" data-show-ads="true" data-source="CNN" data-featured-video="true" data-headline="Blake Lively files complaint that includes texts messages from ex-costar alleging misconduct" data-has-video-player="true" data-description="

CNN’s Elizabeth Wagmeister breaks down details of a complaint filed against actor Justin Baldoni by his ex-costar Blake Lively. Bryan Freedman, an attorney for Baldoni and his Wayfarer Studios, denied the allegations in a statement to CNN, calling the claims made by Lively “completely false, outrageous and intentionally salacious with an intent to publicly hurt and rehash a narrative in the media.” He continued, “It is shameful that Ms. Lively and her representatives would make such serious and categorically false accusations against Mr. Baldoni, Wayfarer Studios and its representatives, as yet another desperate attempt to ‘fix’ her negative reputation, which,” Freedman added, “was garnered from her own remarks and actions during the campaign for the film; interviews and press activities that were observed publicly, in real time and unedited, which allowed for the internet to generate their own views and opinions.”

” data-duration=”03:32″ data-source-html=” – Source:

CNN
” data-fave-thumbnails=”{“big”: { “uri”: “https://media.cnn.com/api/v1/images/stellar/prod/20241221-split-blake-lively-justin-baldoni.jpg?c=16×9&q=h_540,w_960,c_fill” }, “small”: { “uri”: “https://media.cnn.com/api/v1/images/stellar/prod/20241221-split-blake-lively-justin-baldoni.jpg?c=16×9&q=h_540,w_960,c_fill” } }” data-vr-video=”false” data-show-html=”” data-byline-html=”

” data-timestamp-html=”

” data-check-event-based-preview data-is-vertical-video-embed=”false” data-network-id data-publish-date=”2024-12-23T21:21:37.318Z” data-video-section=”entertainment” data-canonical-url=”https://www.cnn.com/2024/12/23/entertainment/video/blake-lively-justin-baldoni-it-ends-with-us-complaint-wagmeister-cnc-cprog-digvid” data-branding-key data-video-slug=”blake-lively-justin-baldoni-it-ends-with-us-complaint-wagmeister-cnc-cprog-digvid” data-first-publish-slug=”blake-lively-justin-baldoni-it-ends-with-us-complaint-wagmeister-cnc-cprog-digvid” data-video-tags data-breakpoints=”{“video-resource–media-extra-large”: 660}” data-display-video-cover=”true” data-details>

<div data-uri="cms.cnn.com/_components/video-player/instances/cm51jaqgs00063b9ix0104fng@published" data-unselectable="true" data-title data-show-ads="true" data-is-vertical-video-embed="false" data-custom-experience data-component-name="video-player" data-autostart="disabled" data-is-vertical-video="false" data-fixed-ratio="16×9" data-headline="Blake Lively files complaint that includes texts messages from ex-costar alleging misconduct" data-auth-type="none" data-video-resource-parent-uri="cms.cnn.com/_components/video-resource/instances/cm51jaqc200003b9i91bl26fl@published" data-live data-content-type="mediasource-clip" data-video-resource-uri="cms.cnn.com/_components/video-resource/instances/cm6o6cm0g000d3b5zbuj2pt8i@published" data-poster-image-override="{"big": { "uri": "https://media.cnn.com/api/v1/images/stellar/prod/20241221-split-blake-lively-justin-baldoni.jpg?c=16×9&q=h_540,w_960,c_fill" }, "small": { "uri": "https://media.cnn.com/api/v1/images/stellar/prod/20241221-split-blake-lively-justin-baldoni.jpg?c=16×9&q=h_540,w_960,c_fill" } }" data-video-id="me22819cfcab14a164e9da12cb9bf5421c099cf645" data-media-id="me22819cfcab14a164e9da12cb9bf5421c099cf645" data-duration="03:32" data-description="

CNN’s Elizabeth Wagmeister breaks down details of a complaint filed against actor Justin Baldoni by his ex-costar Blake Lively. Bryan Freedman, an attorney for Baldoni and his Wayfarer Studios, denied the allegations in a statement to CNN, calling the claims made by Lively “completely false, outrageous and intentionally salacious with an intent to publicly hurt and rehash a narrative in the media.” He continued, “It is shameful that Ms. Lively and her representatives would make such serious and categorically false accusations against Mr. Baldoni, Wayfarer Studios and its representatives, as yet another desperate attempt to ‘fix’ her negative reputation, which,” Freedman added, “was garnered from her own remarks and actions during the campaign for the film; interviews and press activities that were observed publicly, in real time and unedited, which allowed for the internet to generate their own views and opinions.”

” data-check-event-based-preview data-network-id data-publish-date=”2024-12-23T21:21:37.318Z” data-video-section=”entertainment” data-canonical-url=”https://www.cnn.com/2024/12/23/entertainment/video/blake-lively-justin-baldoni-it-ends-with-us-complaint-wagmeister-cnc-cprog-digvid” data-branding-key data-video-slug=”blake-lively-justin-baldoni-it-ends-with-us-complaint-wagmeister-cnc-cprog-digvid” data-first-publish-slug=”blake-lively-justin-baldoni-it-ends-with-us-complaint-wagmeister-cnc-cprog-digvid” data-video-tags class=”video-resource”>

The second cease-and-desist was sent “directly to Mr. Freedman,” asking him to stop “making further defamatory, and retaliatory, statements relating to Ms. Lively” and saying that his public statements are “unprotected by the litigation privilege.”

Both Lively and Baldoni claim in their lawsuits to have been the subject of retaliatory publicity campaigns by the other.

In Lively’s suit, she accuses Baldoni’s PR representatives of orchestrated attempts to hurt her reputation in the media as part of a “social manipulation campaign.”

In his suit, Baldoni refuted that claim, accusing Lively and Reynolds of “deploying their enormous power to steal an entire film right out of the hands of its director and production studio.” Further, the suit accuses Lively and her publicity team of creating a “smear campaign against Baldoni and Wayfarer to deflect attention” away from criticism Lively received during the press tour for “It Ends With Us.”

The movie, from Sony Pictures, was released in August 2024 and grossed more than $148 million domestically. Based on Colleen Hoover’s 2016 novel of the same name, “It Ends With Us” spotlights domestic violence in a couple, which was portrayed on-screen by Lively and Baldoni.

CNN’s Elizabeth Wagmeister, Alli Rosenbloom, Lisa Respers France and Dan Heching contributed to this report.