Baldoni asks judge to cut Blake Lively's $8M fee request

Actor and filmmaker Justin Baldoni has asked a federal judge to reject or drastically reduce a request from actress Blake Lively for more than $8 million in legal fees, the latest development in a bitter legal dispute that was settled out of court earlier this year. The request was filed on Monday, July 13, 2026, in federal court.

Lively sought $8 million in attorneys' fees plus $539,514.01 in costs and expenses. In a new filing, Baldoni's legal team argued the request is unreasonable and should be denied entirely, or at minimum reduced to a figure closer to $181,622.70. That benchmark is the amount The New York Times sought in a separate, successful motion to dismiss a defamation claim Baldoni had filed against the newspaper.

Baldoni's filing criticizes Lively's request as "bloated" and lacking credible evidence. It contends the litigation was overstaffed, citing that 82 timekeepers billed over 7,000 hours, with multiple attorneys attending the same hearings and numerous charges for internal conferences and strategy sessions. The document states this volume is roughly 20 times what courts have approved in other high-profile defamation cases.

The fee dispute is a postscript to a...