Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni head to court.
episodePreviously titled “Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni head to court” — renamed by the publisher on Aug 4, 2026
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What is the context of Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni's court case?
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Tikkurilamute maalaa rauhallisuuskotiisi
Hello and welcome back to Fame Under Fire from BBC Sounds with me, Anushka Matanda-Dowdy. Now, two very famous celebrities clad in matching tones of olive green entered the Daniel Mohoinehan courtroom in Southern District of New York. Now, if that name sounds really familiar, that is where the Diddy trial was. What followed was hours and hours of Blake Lively's and Justin Baldoni's camp desperately seeking a settlement. What on earth is going on? But before we jump in, just a warning, this episode does contain some strong language. To help me unpack all of this is our resident trial attorney, Sean Kent. He's back. Hi, Sean.
Hey, Anushka. How are you doing?
I'm good. I forgive you for not being here last week. You did have a quadruple murder trial. Were you presenting in court? Was it pre-trial court hearings?
They were pre-trial motions. You're exactly right. So pre-trial motions, getting ready for our trial starting next week.
And that took up a lot of your time. But the rest of Sean's time has been planning his grand arrival in the UK in July.
He's coming. I'm coming home. I'm coming home. I'm so excited.
He's going to be at the Crosswired Podcast Festival. We're going to do a live recording. I'm a bit nervous about putting this man live on the air. And so are the producers in the whole of the BBC. But he's going to be here wandering around, learning more about this country than just Paddington and Benny Hill, which seem to be his only reference points.
And Marmalade. And I think Marmalade came from Paddington. So that's everything. And Mind the Gap. Those are the things that I know.
Yeah. We've got great cultural exports. We really are a powerhouse on the global stage. But today, Sean, this really is one of your expertise. We're talking about court mandated mediation. Sounds like legalese there. But we had Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni together inside the Southern District of New York courthouse trying to figure this out. Reminder, Blake Lively is suing Justin Baldoni, Jamie Heath, Wayfarer Studio and others for, amongst other things, sexual harassment, defamation, retaliation, smearing her in a smear campaign. That's what she alleges. Now, Justin Baldoni and the rest of the defendants have denied this over and over again. But Sean, this mediation, does this mean that both sides are putting their hands up, waving the white flag and are ready to settle?
Absolutely not. And that is a common misnomer. A lot of times in a lot of districts in the United States, one of the things that is required before you're allowed to go to trial is mandatory court mediation. It is called ADR, Alternative Dispute Resolution, because it's an alternative to go to court. As folks over there have said that Americans are quite litigious and we find ourselves in the court system so much. So what our courts did is before you go to court, before we block the trial docket, before we make it impossible to get in and out of court, why don't y'all try to work this out with a third party and see if you can come to a resolution?
Wait a minute now. This has been going on for ages. Their docket is massive. Is this not a bit late in the game?
Yes and no. Sometimes. And that's a great question, Anoush. What ends up happening is it just depends. You see what I did there? You called me Anoush. Sometimes we've had mediations before we even file a lawsuit, before we even serve it. We've had that in some cases that we've handled that the parties get together and they say, look, the court's going to order it anyway. I'm about to file a lawsuit against you. Before we do a lawsuit, let's sit in a room and see if we can work this out. So that is pre-suit mitigation. And then also what ends up happening is trial could be coming up in a couple of weeks or a couple of months and the court will flat out call the parties and say, hey, Have y'all engage in ADR, alternative dispute resolution?
Have you engaged in mediation? And if the parties say no, then they say, look, before this case gets on my docket, before we pick them 12 folks, I need to hear you guys gave a good faith effort to try to mediate the case.
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