Joe Rogan On Blake Lively & Ryan Reynolds’ Justin Baldoni Claims: “F*cked Up”

Joe Rogan loves to be known for straight talk, and the podcast kingpin certainly stripped down his take on Blake Lively‘s accusations of sexual harassment and an online smear campaign by Justin Baldoni to very simple three words this weekend.

“They f*cked up.”

Putting himself firmly in Baldoni’s corner, the long time UFC commentator unleashed on the multiple lawsuits that has held Hollywood and the nation’s attention through thick, thin and Trump 2.0 since the Another Simple Favor star filed a complaint on December 20 with California’s Civil Rights department against her It Ends With Us co-star/director. Talking with ex-professional mixed martial artist Brendan Schaub on a March 22 edition of the Joe Rogan Experience, Joe Rogan proclaimed ‘the whole thing is crazy.”

Crazy or not, or crazy in a whole other way, Lively and Baldoni’s suits against each other are set to go to trial starting March 9, 2026. As various parties, like Reynolds, the New York Times, publicist Leslie Sloane and just the other day Lively herself want to get out of Baldoni’s $400 million and counting defamation and extortion suit, Judge Lewis J. Liman earlier this month summed the whole quagmire up as a “feud between PR firms.”

Mocking Reynolds for “trying to get out of it now” for his March 18 dismissal motion against Baldoni’s initially January 16 filed and now amended complaint, Rogan further plays fast and loose with the facts to accuse the Deadpool star and Lively of “trying to take over the movie …the whole franchise” when it comes to IEWU. There is no denying by anyone that the actress pushed hard during production for a greater say in her character in the domestic violence themed film. There is also no argument that distributor Sony ultimately released the Lively cut of IEWU last summer to box office success — which could have been a big picture win for self-declared feminist friendly Baldoni as director. However, there is no indication besides a sarcastic quip from Baldoni that A-listers Lively and Reynolds wanted any piece of the rights Baldoni and his Wayfarer Studios owned to Colleen Hoover’s best sellers.

Slamming Lively for supposedly attempting to use the #MeTooMovement to “fuckin’ ruin a guy’s (Baldoni’s) livelihood,” Schaub went on to compare Baldoni’s stance in the now sprawling legal actions to  “like Johnny Depp …he did for the boys.”

Funny thing, there is a degree of truth to what Schaub told Rogan, but perhaps not in the way the MMA fighter intended.

The Baldoni vs Liveley case(s) does in fact seem to be a lot like Depp’s successful multi-million dollar defamation suit against ex-wife Amber Heard in 2022 after she accused him of domestic abuse in a 2018 WaPo op-ed. First of all, both women suddenly appeared to be at the receiving end of big online blowback and “astroturfing” attacks after speaking up or potentially speaking up against male misconduct. Secondly, both the Pirates of the Caribbean star and Baldoni were and, in the latter’s case, still are, represented by Crisis PR boss Melissa Nathan.

Still, Baldoni’s career has been “devastated” as a result of the showdown with Lively, according to his own lead lawyer Bryan Freedman. As a part of that devastation, Baldoni was dropped by the Reynolds and Lively representing WME on December 21. He also ruined any chance of ever making anything at Disney after Freedman sent an evidence preservation and lawsuit threatening letter to Bob Iger and Kevin Feige in early January alleging Reynolds based the slimy Deadpool & Wolverine character “Nicepool” on Baldoni.

Still, to Rogan, Baldoni is the one to beat here

“He posted the receipts,” Rogan went on to say, after calling the Jane the Virgin alum “this really sweet nice guy.” After Lively’s CRD filing came out full of texts between Baldoni’s publicists Nathan and Jennifer Abel and others about a “social combat plan” and boasting “we can bury anyone,” (which was the headline of the December 21 New York Times piece on the alleged retaliation against Lively by Baldoni’s gang), Baldoni lawyer Freedman on January 31 put up a website with an amended complaint of his client’s $400 million suit against Lively, Reynolds, publicist Sloane and the NYT. Seeking to reset the narrative, that site also contained a 168-page “timeline of relevant events” full of even more texts and emails.

“You literally have a text exchange back and forth,” Rogan said of that timeline, which Judge Liman called out in an early February hearing as maybe violating federal court procedure since it’s basically a narrative to Baldoni’s complaint.

Leaving that aside, Rogan goes on to praise the offensive moves by Baldoni, Wayfarer, its execs, the PR team and lawyers like Freedman. “They just never thought that anybody was going to come out with the receipts.” The former Fear Factor host added: “Everyone is scared. Ryan Reynolds, A-list. Blake Lively, A-list.”

Little rich for the man who has presidents, sports stars and contrarian lining up to be on his top rated podcast taking a swipe at the magnetic economic and cultural appeal Reynolds presently has. Interestingly, the comments on Lively, Reynolds and Baldoni by Rogan, who once called himself “a f*cking moron … I’m not a respected source of information, even for me,” made up just over 1-minute of a nearly 3.5-hour long live streamed JRE that was otherwise made up of the host, Schaub, Gordon Ryan, and Eddie Bravo watching fights together – as you can see below:

Reps for Baldoni had no comment today on Rogan’s remarks about their client. Reps for Lively and Reynolds did not respond to Deadline’s request Wednesday. for comment.