Blake Lively reportedly filed a secret subpoena against Justin Baldoni before making harassment claims public

A new report has revealed that actress Blake Lively may have taken legal action against actor Justin Baldoni in secret months before publicly accusing him of sexual harassment.

According to Page Six, the situation has become more complicated, with both celebrities now involved in lawsuits against each other, while legal experts weigh in on the unusual steps taken in the case.

The report claims that Blake Lively secretly filed a subpoena under the name of her company, rather than using her own, in order to access private information from Baldoni’s former publicity team. The subpoena was allegedly sent to Stephanie Jones, who used to be Baldoni’s publicist and now runs her own firm, Jonesworks. The request demanded all communications involving Baldoni, Lively, and her husband, actor Ryan Reynolds.

The subpoena, as per Page Six, was reportedly linked to efforts to gather evidence for a future lawsuit. Jones is said to have provided emails and messages exchanged between crisis PR manager Melissa Nathan and a former employee named Jennifer Abel, who was still working with Baldoni at the time. These messages later became a key part of Lively’s legal team’s argument that there was a planned smear campaign against her while Baldoni was promoting the movie It Ends With Us in August 2024.

One of the messages allegedly included Nathan saying, “We can bury anyone,” which Lively’s team used as evidence of a coordinated effort to damage her reputation. Despite these claims, the initial lawsuit was dropped in December 2024—just days before Lively officially filed a complaint with California’s Civil Rights Department, accusing Baldoni of sexual harassment.

Legal professionals have weighed in on the situation. Attorney Ron Zambrano, who is not involved in the case, told the Daily Mail that the strategy used by Lively’s side appeared to be “very shady” and “clandestine.” He suggested that the legal move was likely made to quietly gather information without drawing attention or allowing the other side to respond.

In response, Baldoni’s lawyer, Bryan Freedman, criticized Lively’s actions. He told Page Six that the company used by Lively and Reynolds, named Vanzan, had no real connection to the case and was only used to gain legal power inappropriately. He argued that this tactic was a misuse of the legal system, saying it was done to avoid scrutiny and to block Baldoni and his team from challenging the subpoena.