“I F*cked Up”: Justin Baldoni Tells Blake Lively In Late-Night 2023 VM; Judge Aims For March 2026 ‘It Ends With Us’ Trial Start

deadline.com:

“I’m really sorry, I f*cked up,” Justin Baldoni admitted to his It Ends With Us co-star Blake Lively in a 2 a.m. April 2023 voice message after delivering a less than enthusiastic response to scene rewrite from the Gossip Girl vet. “I will admit and apologize when I fail, the Jane the Virgin alum added in the six minute missive. “I’m a very flawed man, as my wife will attest.” Far from the first piece of private correspondence or communication between the co-stars and their various publicists unveiled since Lively filed a sexual harassment and retaliation complaint on December 20 with California’s Civil Rights department, today’s nearly two-year old and rambling voice message comes as a federal judge has penciled in a March 9, 2026 trial start date for the thespians’ bitter dispute. “By Thursday, January 30, 2025, the parties shall submit a case management plan with deadlines which would enable trial to occur on that date,” Judge Lewis J.

Liman ordered today of the trial start. A dispute that has spilled over a variety of lawsuits, including Lively suing Baldoni, his Wayfarer Studios, his PR bosses and others on New Year’s Eve, and Baldoni, who sued the New York Times for $250 million on NYE, suing Lively, Ryan Reynolds and their PR chief Leslie Sloane for $400 million in a January 16 defamation and extortion case.

All of which makes Baldoni’s very early morning words of 21 months ago almost prophetic, almost:  “I’m gonna piss you off, probably, but I will always apologize and find my way back to center.

I’m sorry I made you feel that way. I will, for sure, do better.” In the zone flooding that this seemingly never ending assortment of filings and statements is, Judge Liman Monday also sought to fast track a boil on