Following months of legal disputes with Blake Lively, Justin Baldoni re-emerged on “Dancing With the Stars.” It was his first major outing since his protracted legal battle with his “It Ends With Us co-star” ended. They reached an out-of-court settlement in May 2026, just weeks before their scheduled trial, ending their years-long legal dispute.
Justin Baldoni on Dancing With the Stars Blake Lively legal drama
After months of legal drama involving Blake Lively, Justin Baldoni stepped back into the spotlight on “Dancing With the Stars.”
The “Jane the Virgin” star attended the celebrity dancing show‘s first-ever Super Bowl Night on Tuesday, October 13. His wife Emily Baldoni and their two kids, 11-year-old Maiya and 8-year-old Maxwell, joined him in the audience.
However, his appearance on screen was fleeting. The broadcast briefly showed the family applauding early in the episode, right after “Love Island UK” star Maura Higgins performed a Rihanna-inspired tango. The pair’s friendship spans nearly a decade, dating back to their collaboration on Baldoni’s 2016 documentary series “My Last Days.”
This marked his first high-profile public appearance since concluding his legal dispute with “It Ends With Us” co-star Blake Lively. The “Gossip Girl” actress had accused Baldoni and his company Wayfarer Studios of sexual harassment and running a smear campaign against her.
Justin Baldoni denied the claims and filed a $400 million countersuit against Lively, her husband Ryan Reynolds, and others, alleging defamation and extortion. That suit was dismissed by a Manhattan federal judge in June 2025. The two settled the dispute in May 2026, though a judge later ordered Baldoni to help cover the “Savages” star’s legal fees.
Justin and Emily Baldoni addressed their time away from the spotlight in a joint Instagram video shared in July. In it, the mother-of-two shared that there had been “a lot of trauma for us to move through as a family, which also makes it hard to speak.” Wrapping up, the 42-year-old said that he and his family is now prioritizing “healing.”
