Justin Baldoni On Why Blake Lively Calls Her Home Office ‘Buckingham Palace’

The actress’s house has come up several times in their standoff and was also the location where the director told her that he was circumcised while she was pregnant.

Justin Baldoni and Blake Lively have been locked in a legal battle since she accused him of sexual harassment on the set of “It Ends With Us.”

Baldoni sat for a deposition as part of his ongoing battle with Lively on October 6, 2025, in Los Angeles.

In transcripts obtained by People Magazine, the actor claimed that Lively refers to her New York apartment home office as “Buckingham Palace,” because of the number of famous celebrities who come there.

“She used to call it Buckingham Palace, as she said, because so many celebrities walked through there,” Baldoni said. “I think that was her office in her penthouse apartment, which was the place that Ms. Lively requested all of our meetings be.”

The pair have gone back and forth at each other with several accusations since the “Gossip Girl” actress sued him for sexually harassing her on the set of “It Ends With Us,” and also launching a smear campaign against her, which he denies.

He countersued her, accusing her and her husband, Ryan Reynolds, of defamation and extortion, but a judge has since dismissed the suit.

Lively’s penthouse home has become a recurring figure in the legal showdown as references have been made to it a couple of times.

In a previous filing, Baldoni claimed it was the location where Reynolds “berated” him for allegedly “fat shaming” his wife as they filmed “It Ends With Us,” per People.

The Manhattan penthouse was also the location Baldoni mentioned to a pregnant Lively that he was circumcised during a time they talked about her baby on the way.

According to the transcript from Baldoni’s deposition, Lively’s lawyer, Michael J. Gottlieb, asked him, “Did you at any point share with Ms. Lively whether you were circumcised?” and he replied, “Yes.”

He was then asked if the actress asked him such a question, to which he replied, “Directly, no.” Gottlieb went further to ask him who else was present in the room when he made the comment.

Baldoni replied, “There were people going all around. Mr. Reynolds was in and out of the conversation. She had, I think, two nannies. I felt like there was a housekeeper there. Her assistant was walking around. I think she had two assistants there. Her and I were sitting on the couch, but there were people all around.”

Recently unsealed texts show how Baldoni grew frustrated working with Lively and accused her of setting him up by refusing a body double in sex scenes.

The actor sent the text to his former agent at William Morris Endeavor Entertainment (WME), Danny Greenberg, adding that he had a “really, really bad week” dealing with her.

He noted that she suggested they have a meeting at her home before taking issue with how the film’s romantic scenes would be shot.

Baldoni claims she “refused” to use a body double during the intimate scene, prompting Sony executives and producer Todd Black to step in.

“That’s just setting me up for a trap,” he wrote, also sharing that she wanted a body double to be used in his place.

Baldoni, in his alleged text message to his former agent, expressed displeasure at how Lively pushed to have them both clothed while they filmed intimate scenes.

The actor labeled the whole arrangement “a gigantic clusterf-ck” and noted in the text that he was giving Lively “95% of what she wants for peace.”

However, Baldoni said that the experience of working with “an actress who is rewriting the writer and director” had been “very draining” and “time-consuming” for him.

Prior to their legal feud, Baldoni and Lively held an “all-hands” meeting with studio representatives to try to address issues, but a source close to Lively shared that it only happened after the actress had outlined “numerous ways” Baldoni and Heath allegedly “created a hostile work environment.”

According to a Lively source, Baldoni’s alleged text messages underscore his “retaliatory intent” toward the actress.

“It reflects his private anger over the same safeguards that he had said in public were both ‘reasonable’ and ‘essential,’ and which he later admitted in his deposition were reasonable, including his resentment for having to show up to an ‘all hands’ meeting he had also agreed to,” the source stated.

Lively and Baldoni’s case was supposed to head to trial in March 2026, but Judge Lewis Liman has since pushed it back to May.

The judge noted in a December 2025 court session that he has two criminal trials and “as important as this case is … criminal trials take precedent.”