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Text messages between Rainn Wilson and Justin Baldoni are now part of the latter’s ongoing legal battle with Blake Lively.
Court documents obtained by PEOPLE show a January 2024 text exchange between Wilson and Baldoni as part of a large group chat, in which The Office actor, 59, calls Baldoni, 41, “brother” and expresses sympathy for the filmmaker. Baldoni relayed, in Baldoni’s words, an “ambush” in which Lively, 38, and her husband Ryan Reynolds confronted Baldoni over “creepy” behavior on the set of “It Ends with Us.”
“Oh my god. I can’t believe it,” Wilson wrote back. “You were set up, ambushed and personally attacked. I am stunned. Like a deer caught in headlights, I completely empathize with your being stunned.”
Wilson thanked Seraph of the End producer Jamie Heath, who was also named in Lively’s sexual harassment complaint, for his apparent intervention, adding, “Brother, make a great, important, interesting piece of storytelling. That’s all I can do right now. So I’m sorry for what you went through.”
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Baldoni and Wilson’s friendship dates back to at least 2016, when the Jane the Virgin alum appeared on Baha’i Blogcast to discuss their shared Baha’i faith. The actors participated in a panel titled “Shaking the Industry by Entertaining with Empathy” during SXSW 2017 and reunited on an episode of Wilson’s Soul Boom Podcast in October 2024. Baldoni praised Wilson’s book of the same name in a 2023 Instagram post, calling him a “dear friend and spiritual brother.”
“Reign and Justin are longtime friends,” according to a Soul Boom newsletter that includes an excerpt from Baldoni’s 2021 book, Man Enough: Undefining My Masculinity. Their interview, which covers It Ends With Us, modern masculinity, spirituality, and mental health, was published between the film’s premiere and Lively’s December 2024 sexual harassment complaint against Baldoni and the rest of the Wayfarer Studios team.
Leah Tobey/Getty; Jon Nasion/Variety, via Getty
Baldoni denied allegations of on-set misconduct or a retaliatory smear campaign, but later filed a countersuit against Lively and Reynolds for extortion and defamation, which was dismissed by U.S. District Judge Lewis J. Lehman in June 2025.
It was recently revealed that Lively is seeking more than $160 million in damages over her ongoing lawsuit. In a 73-page court filing obtained by PEOPLE, Baldoni asked Liman to rule in their favor rather than proceed to trial.
In a text message exchange between Baldoni and Wilson, Baldoni called the conflict between her co-star and her husband “one of the hardest nights of my life.”
“My brain was trying to protect itself when they wanted me to apologize for all the things I’ve done that put her in danger,” he wrote, apparently referring to Lively. “Ryan was talking to me and scolding me like a 5-year-old.”
He added: “It’s hard to feel that a lot of what they believe about me is a lie, because they believe it to be real.”
The Lively vs. Wayfarer Studios et al exam is scheduled for March 2026.
