Ryan Reynolds Files Motion To Dismiss Baldoni Lawsuit, Claims He’s Suing Over ‘Hurt Feelings’

Actor Ryan Reynolds, husband of “It Ends With Us” star Blake Lively, has filed a motion to dismiss Justin Baldoni’s claims that the actor was mocking him via the use of the character “Nicepool” in “Deadpool & Wolverine.”

Baldoni and Lively have been involved in a legal back and forth which is scheduled to culminate in a joint trial sometime next year. However, Reynolds was pulled into the fray as Baldoni claimed that Lively’s husband was making fun of him, which he asserted was proof that neither party took Lively’s sexual harassment claims seriously.

Baldoni sued Lively and Reynolds, alleging that they were trying to destroy his career with false allegations. The lawsuit also said Reynolds had verbally berated Baldoni for allegedly “fat shaming” Lively.

The motion to dismiss states that defamation charges are not valid if Reynolds believes what he has asserted about Baldoni, per a report from Variety.

The “allegations suggest that Mr. Reynolds genuinely, perhaps passionately, believes that Mr. Baldoni’s behavior is reflective of a ‘predator,’” the motion states. “(T)he law establishes that calling someone a ‘predator’ amounts to constitutionally protected opinion … While Mr. Baldoni ‘may not appreciate being called’ a predator, those hurt feelings do not give rise to legal claims.”

“Mr. Reynolds has a First Amendment right to hold Mr. Baldoni — or any man who Mr. Reynolds believes sexually harassed his wife — in ‘deep disdain,’” the motion says. “It is, in essence, a burn book filled with grievances attempting to shame Mr. Reynolds for being the kind of man who is ‘confident enough to listen’ to the woman in his life and to hold her ‘anguish and actually’ stand with her.”

Reynold’s legal team also uses Baldoni’s past admissions of wrongdoing as proof that Reynolds should have a negative opinion of him.

The motion states, “It would be perverse to permit Mr. Baldoni to build an entire brand — complete with a podcast, Ted Talk, and books — off of his confessions of repeatedly mistreating women, only to turn around and sue Mr. Reynolds for $400 million for simply pointing out in private what Mr. Baldoni has bragged about in public.”

Baldoni also has a $250 million lawsuit pending against The New York Times for the publication of an article that he claims was “rife with inaccuracies, misrepresentations, and omissions.”

The suit accuses the NYT of failing to exhibit “journalistic integrity” because the article’s writers “relied almost entirely on Lively’s unverified and self-serving narrative, lifting it nearly verbatim while disregarding an abundance of evidence that contradicted her claims and exposed her true motives.”