Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds aren’t letting their recent legal drama get them down.
The Hollywood couple were all smiles as they posed for a photograph with Lively’s A Simple Favor 2 costar, Michele Morrone.
The Italian actor and model shared a snap of the trio hanging out via his Instagram Stories on Sunday, January 26, and wrote, “Missed you guys! Love you!!” Morrone, 34, tagged both Lively, 37, and Reynolds, 48, in the post, set to the tune of Eve’s “Let Me Blow Ya Mind.” (For his part, Reynolds reshared Morrone’s photo with his 53 million followers.)
The friendly reunion comes after Lively and Morrone filmed the highly anticipated sequel to A Simple Favor last year. (Lively and Anna Kendrick are both set to reprise their roles in the comedy thriller from director Paul Feig.)
Morrone previously came to Lively’s defense after she filed a sexual harassment complaint against her It Ends With Us costar and director, Justin Baldoni.
“It’s usually not my thing to make those kinds of videos, but I think it’s time to stand up for a person I really love and this person is Blake Lively,” Morrone said in a December 23 video shared via his Instagram Stories.
The 365 Days star continued, “I personally met Blake during A Simple Favor 2. We shot this incredible film together and I felt something was wrong, and I felt the pain … We had the opportunity to talk, me and her, [and] Blake was in pain.” (A Simple Favor 2 was filmed last spring, per Deadline, while It Ends With Us began filming in May 2023 and resumed in January 2024 following the SAG-AFTRA strike.)
Morrone said he was “really tired” of seeing “cruel and bad comments” about Lively “without knowing the situation.” He linked to a New York Times article published December 21, detailing Lively’s catalog of complaints against Baldoni, 40, on the set of It Ends With Us, which he asked fans to read “to make you understand, before commenting, what happened.”
“Blake, I love you so much. Keep it up and we’re going to see each other very soon. Love you,” the actor concluded.
Following Lively’s initial complaint against Baldoni with the California Civil Rights Department, Lively and Baldoni both filed lawsuits against each other.
In a suit filed on December 31, 2024, Lively accused Baldoni of sexual harassment, retaliation, breach of contract, infliction of emotional distress, invasion of privacy and lost wages stemming from her experience on It Ends With Us. Baldoni’s lawyer, Bryan Freedman, denied the “completely false, outrageous and intentionally salacious” accusations in a statement to Us at the time, claiming Lively filed her complaint in order to “fix her negative reputation.”
Baldoni later filed his own $400 million lawsuit on January 16 accusing Lively, 37, Reynolds, and Lively’s publicist, Leslie Sloane, of civil extortion, defamation, false light invasion of privacy and other claims. Lively’s legal team referred to the suit as “another chapter in the abuser playbook,” claiming in a statement, “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. This is what experts call DARVO. Deny. Attack. Reverse Victim Offender. … The strategy of attacking the woman is desperate, it does not refute the evidence in Ms. Lively’s complaint, and it will fail.”
Baldoni and nine others are also suing The New York Times for its coverage of Lively’s earlier Civil Rights Department complaint, which Morrone linked to in his Instagram Story in December. The $250 million lawsuit accuses the Times of libel and false invasion of privacy. The plaintiffs allege the outlet “cherry-picked” communications and omitted context to mislead readers. A spokesperson for the Times stood by the outlet’s “meticulously and responsibly reported” story, noting in a statement last month, “The role of an independent news organization is to follow the facts where they lead. “
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