“It Ends With Us” director and co-star Justin Baldoni sued The New York Times for $250 million on Tuesday over its explosive report alleging a smear campaign against co-lead Blake Lively after she claimed she’d been harassed on set.

Filed in Los Angeles Superior Court by Baldoni and nine other plaintiffs, the suit alleges the Times took numerous texts and other communications out of context, relying on “‘cherry-picked’ and altered communications stripped of necessary context and deliberately spliced to mislead,” according to the lawsuit, which was first reported by Variety.

Baldoni’s 87-page complaint gives examples of what Lively had called harassment in a Dec. 20 filing with the California Human Rights Commission, calling her narrative “rife with blatant falsehoods and egregious misrepresentation” — including leaving out emojis indicating sarcasm in some of the communications.

Lively also filed suit on Tuesday, following up on her 80-page human rights commission complaint with a lawsuit in federal court in New York, TMZ reported. She’s also suing the crisis PR team Baldoni had hired in August, and Wayfarer Studios, which produced what turned out to be a blockbuster film, seeking monetary damages for severe emotional distress.

Talent agency WME dropped Baldoni hours after the Times published “‘We Can Bury Anyone’: Inside a Hollywood Smear Machine,” written by Megan Twohey, Mike McIntire and Julie Tate, on Dec. 21. His podcast co-host quit, and a women’s-rights nonprofit rescinded his advocacy award.

In one example cited in Baldoni’s suit, the Times story repeats Lively’s claim that Baldoni “repeatedly entered her makeup trailer uninvited while she was undressed, including when she was breastfeeding.” Baldoni quotes a text Lively sent him that said she was pumping breastmilk in her trailer and would be willing to work on their lines. He agreed and arrived later.

Baldoni’s attorneys said the example was just one of many that soundly refute Lively’s allegations.

Also suing are publicists Melissa Nathan and Jennifer Abel over their reported role in the alleged smear campaign, along with producers Jamey Heath and Steve Sarowitz, according to Variety. All are seeking compensatory and punitive damages.

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Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt reach divorce settlement after 8 years

LOS ANGELES — Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt have reached a divorce settlement, ending one of the longest and most contentious divorces in Hollywood history but not every legal issue between the two.

Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Scott J. Nord approved the agreement Tuesday, a day after Jolie and Pitt signed off on it.

“More than eight years ago, Angelina filed for divorce from Mr. Pitt,” Jolie's attorney, James Simon, said in a statement. “She and the children left all of the properties they had shared with Mr. Pitt, and since that time she has focused on finding peace and healing for their family. This is just one part of a long ongoing process that started eight years ago. Frankly, Angelina is exhausted, but she is relieved this one part is over.”

The filing says they give up the right to any future spousal financial support, but gives no other details. An email to Pitt's attorney seeking comment was not immediately answered.

Jolie, 49, and Pitt, 61, were among Hollywood’s most prominent pairings for 12 years, two of them as a married couple. The Oscar winners have six children together.

Jolie filed for divorce in 2016, after a private jet flight from Europe during which she said Pitt physically abused her and their children. The FBI and child services officials investigated Pitt's actions on the flight. Two months later the FBI released a statement saying it would not investigate further, and the U.S. attorney did not bring charges.

A heavily redacted FBI report obtained by The Associated Press in 2022 said that an agent provided a probable cause statement to prosecutors on Pitt, but that after discussing the merits, “it was agreed by all parties that criminal charges would not be pursued.”

The document said Jolie was “personally conflicted” about supporting charges, and in a later court filing she said she opted not to push for them for the sake of the family.

A source familiar with the child services inquiry told the AP in 2016 that the child services investigation was closed without a finding of abuse.

A judge in 2019 declared Jolie and Pitt divorced and single, but the splitting of assets and child custody needed to be settled separately.

Both have been free to marry again since that declaration, but neither has. The marriage was the third for Jolie, who was previously married to Jonny Lee Miller and Billy Bob Thornton, and the second for Pitt, who was previously wed to Jennifer Aniston.

Soon after, a private judge that the two had hired to handle the case reached a decision that included equal custody of their children, but Jolie filed to have him removed from the case over an unreported conflict of interest. An appeals court agreed, removing the judge and vacating his decision. The couple had to start the process over.

During the long divorce fight, four of their children became adults, negating the need for a custody agreement for them. The only minors that remain are 16-year-old twins Knox and Vivienne. The court will maintain jurisdiction over the child custody even with the finalized agreement, as it does in all California cases. In June, one of their daughters, then known as Shiloh Nouvel Jolie-Pitt, successfully petitioned to remove Pitt's name from hers.

The couple's use of private judges — an increasingly common move among splitting celebrities in recent years — kept the details of the divorce largely under wraps. There had been no official court actions in the case in nearly a year, and no indication that the two were near agreement.

Some elements of their disputes, however, have been revealed through a separate lawsuit filed by Pitt over Jolie's sale of her half of a French winery they owned. Pitt had wanted to buy her half of the winery, Château Miraval, and said she abandoned their negotiations and sold her part to the Tenute del Mondo wine group. Pitt said it was a “vindictive” and “unlawful” move that should not have been made without his consent and ruined a private space that had been a second home.

Jolie and her attorneys said that Pitt had demanded she sign a wide-ranging nondisclosure agreement about him as part of the proposed deal that was an attempt to cover up his abuse of her and the children.

The divorce agreement does not affect the winery lawsuit, where the legal battle between the two stars could continue.

Publicly, both Pitt and Jolie have been extremely tight-lipped on everything surrounding their split, despite robust promotional tours for various projects.

Pitt said in a 2017 interview with GQ that he had had a drinking problem at the time of the plane incident and the split, but had since become sober and was going to therapy. He has not defended his behavior on the family flight.

Both were among the most elite stars in film when they began dating in 2004, after costarring as hitman-and-hitwoman spouses in “Mr. and Mrs. Smith,” and remained atop the Hollywood A-list throughout their coupling. The star of “Maleficent” and “Lara Croft: Tomb Raider,” Jolie won an Oscar for her performance in 1999’s “Girl, Interrupted.”

Pitt, the star of “Fight Club” and “Inglourious Basterds,” thrived as both actor and producer after the split. He won his own Academy Award for 2019’s “Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood,” the crowning achievement in an awards season that some in media framed as a redemption and brought major public affection for him.

Jolie kept a less visible profile in the years since the divorce, though she directed several films and appeared in several more while trying to focus on raising the children. She has very much returned to the Oscar conversation this year for her portrayal of the legendary soprano Maria Callas in “Maria.”

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Watches stolen from Keanu Reeves home burglary recovered in Chile

Three expensive watches stolen from Keanu Reeves’ home last year were tracked down in Chile, authorities said Saturday.

One of the stolen watches was a $9,000 Rolex Submariner that was engraved with Reeves’ name and a personal message related to the film “John Wick 4.”

Police in Chile raided four homes in and around the capital city of Santiago and recovered a number of stolen goods, CNN Chile reported. A 21-year-old man, who was not publicly identified, was arrested in the investigation.

Chilean police were investigating a robbery and burglary crew they believed was responsible for several local robberies, the Los Angeles Times reported.

The watches were swiped from Reeves’ Hollywood Hills home in December 2023, according to police. Reeves was not home at the time when four masked men broke into the residence and made off with several items.

Among the stolen goods was the Rolex Submariner, which was engraved with the message, “2021, JW4, thank you, The John Wick Five.” Reeves had gifted the same watches to the stuntmen who worked with him on “John Wick 4,” the latest installment in the “John Wick” series.

Coincidentally, the first John Wick film begins with thieves breaking into the home of Reeves’ character and killing his dog, setting him on an epic revenge tour. However, the real life thieves probably have less to worry about.

“You can never say never,” Reeves told “CBS Mornings” last week, speaking of a possible fifth “John Wick” film. “But my knees right now are saying ‘You can’t do another John Wick.’”

From combined wire services