Blake Lively & Ryan Reynolds Are Ari Emanuel’s “Ride Or Die”; Endeavor CEO Gives Power Couple Full-Throated Support In Justin Baldoni Battle – Deadline
By Dominic Patten Executive Editor, Legal, Labor & Politics
Ari Emanuel has long been known to consider loyalty a top virtue and last night the Endeavor CEO came out unabashedly for Team Blake in the convoluted and sprawling conflict between the It Ends With Us star, Ryan Reynolds and former WME client Justin Baldoni.
“I am a ride or die, and they’re good people.”
“I’ve known Ryan and Blake for over a decade,” Emanuel said at a taping of the Freakonomics Radio Live show Thursday night. “They’re really incredible people,” he added. “In Hollywood, they have been incredibly successful. People work with them, they’ve never had any bad mojo out there or treated people badly. They are charitable – we help them with their foundation – they’ve given tons of money away.”
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Franchise superstar Reynolds signed with WME in 2014, with Gossip Girl alum Lively inking with the agency in 2015. Baldoni began being represented by WME in 2019.
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Bluntly calling what allegedly went down during production of the Sony distributed IEWU and the online smear campaign that Lively says Baldoni, Crisis PR chief Melissa Nathan and their minions subjected her to “a fucked up, bad situation,” the TKO exec also told host Stephen Dubner that it was he who personally dumped the Jane the Virgin vet from WME on December 21.
“I fired him,” Emanuel proclaimed of Baldoni’s pink slipping from his then agency, as Deadline reported, one day after Lively filed a sexual harassment and retaliation complaint with California’s Civil Rights Department.
“She felt that she was not being protected,” Emanuel stated of Lively and concerns the actress seemingly expressed repeatedly during IEWU filming, “She complained and then these people tried to go after her. They should stop. They’re still trying to do it, they should stop.”
WME has long insisted that for all their Hollywood heft, Lively and Reynolds put zero pressure on the agency to cut ties with Baldoni.
Reported at length in the December 21 New York Times expose “We Can Bury Anyone: Inside A Hollywood Smear Campaign”, the CRD filing was a prelude to the lawsuit Lively hit Baldoni, his Wayfarer Studios, its CEO, financier, and publicists Nathan and Jennifer Abel with on New Year’s Eve. Among a flurry of lawsuits, media appearances, an evidence preservation letter to Disney and other missives, Baldoni sued the Gray Lady for $250 million on NYE. He followed that up by going after Lively, Reynolds and their PR chief Leslie Sloane in a $400 million defamation and extortion action on January 16. With a recent amended complaint by Baldoni, as well as a $7 million defamation suit against Lively from Texas-based alleged social media manipulator Jed Wallace, an amended complaint is expected from Lively and her Deadpool hubby’s side soon.
Now a head swirling media cottage industry of its own, the whole shabang is set to go to trial on March 29, 2026 in New York federal court.
“If what is alleged in her lawsuit that what happened on social media is true, just because she complained to the studio that things were unhealthy on the set, and that he was director and this man was the producer, and they did to her what is being alleged, they’re really bad people,” Emanuel said of the Bryan Freedman represented Baldoni and his professional partner Jamey Heath last night on stage.
“I know Blake, I know Ryan, they’re good people.”
Representatives for Baldoni did not respond to request from Deadline this morning for comment on Emanuel’s remarks. If they do respond, this post will be updated.
Also chatting about the $97.37 billion bid to buy OpenAI that he’s working with pal Elon Musk on, Emanuel’s remarks about Lively and Reynolds came on the same day that lawyers for his clients and Baldoni dropped some news. In a rare display of unity, both sides told Judge Lewis J. Liman on February 13 that they are rejecting mediation and are nowhere near any sort of settlement.
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Source: http://deadline.com/2025/02/blake-lively-ryan-reynolds-ari-emanuel-ride-or-die-1236289420/
