Can Blake Lively Rescue Blake Brown After a Reported 78% Sales Plunge?
Amid a legal dispute with Justin Baldoni, Blake Lively is seeing fallout far beyond the film set: her lifestyle ventures are stalling, with even her haircare brand feeling the squeeze. It Ends With Us isn’t just testing her box-office pull—it’s stress-testing her business empire, too.
Blake Lively has a lot going on off screen right now, and it is not just Hollywood gossip. Her fight with Justin Baldoni is spilling into her business life, the sales numbers look rough, and a judge just tossed Baldoni's countersuit while her own case keeps moving. So yeah, it is messy.
The business slide
Lively has been building a mini lifestyle empire for years, with her haircare brand Blake Brown and her canned cocktail line Betty Booze. Lately, both have been taking hits. According to Fortune (published December 23, 2024), sales plunged by nearly 78% around the time she filed her lawsuit against Baldoni. That dip lines up with the legal chaos, and the chatter around her alleged fallout with Taylor Swift did not help either. A chunk of Swift's fanbase reportedly backed away from Lively's brands out of loyalty to the singer.
Lively has tried to keep the focus on the products themselves. She posted a demo on Instagram showing a 45-minute volume hair routine she did on her niece, and the results looked solid. But social media gloss only goes so far when retail momentum stalls.
"Blake Brown will do less than $15 million in total sales in 2025. It is a non-conversation at Target. It went from a $100 million brand to a $15 million brand."
— a person close to Target, speaking to Puck (via News Nation, published May 30, 2025)
If that projection sticks, that is a staggering comedown for a celebrity beauty label. It is the tough part about famous-founders: the public's mood swings can hit harder than any ad campaign can fix.
Where the legal fight stands now
On the court side, there was a major twist. A federal judge in Manhattan, Lewis Liman, dismissed Justin Baldoni's extortion and defamation lawsuit against Lively, Ryan Reynolds, and The New York Times. As reported by Rolling Stone (published October 31, 2025), Baldoni and his team missed their deadline to amend the complaint and did not respond to court orders, so the countersuit was tossed. That chapter is closed for him.
Lively's case is not. Filed in December, her lawsuit accuses Baldoni of inappropriate on-set conduct during It Ends With Us and alleges he retaliated afterward by trying to damage her reputation. Those claims are still active, and that is the part everyone in Hollywood is watching, because it could get uglier before it gets clearer.
How we got here, the quick version
- December: Lively files a sexual harassment and retaliation lawsuit tied to It Ends With Us.
- December 23, 2024: Fortune reports a nearly 78% sales plunge around the time she filed suit.
- May 30, 2025: Puck (via News Nation) quotes a Target source saying Blake Brown could do less than $15 million in 2025.
- October 31, 2025: Judge Lewis Liman dismisses Baldoni's extortion/defamation countersuit against Lively, Ryan Reynolds, and The New York Times after missed deadlines.
For now, Baldoni's countersuit is dead, Lively's claims march on, and the brands are in rebuild mode whether they like it or not.
If you want to revisit the movie at the center of all this, It Ends With Us is streaming on Netflix in the US.