It was a woman’s dinner in New York’s Meatpacking district that exposed the identification of Blake Lively’s new A-list buddy.

The embattled actress was seen guffawing together with her older sister Robyn and fellow Hollywood star Salma Hayek as they left the RH Rooftop Restaurant, shortly after it emerged that Energetic’s friendship with Taylor Swift had come to a dramatic finish.

The singer reportedly lower ties when Energetic threatened to leak personal texts until Swift backed her in an ongoing bitter feud together with her co-star Justin Baldoni.

Solely days later, Hayek gushed about her new bestie on the 2025 Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Problem launch get together in New York.

She revealed she’s been mates with each Energetic and husband Ryan Reynolds for years and is shut with their 4 kids.

‘I acquired an opportunity to go play with them. They acquired to see their tía[aunt] Salma,’ she cooed. ‘They’ll additionally converse some Spanish.’

Now, her new friendship with Salma Hayek (centre) is now the discuss of Tinseltown, after US District Courtroom decide Lewis Liman’s sensational dismissal of the £400million defamation lawsuit filed by Baldoni towards Energetic

The message was clear: Energetic’s acquired a brand new bestie. Certainly, her new bosom friendship with Hayek is now the discuss of Tinseltown, after US District Courtroom decide Lewis Liman’s sensational dismissal of the £400million defamation lawsuit filed by Baldoni towards Energetic.

By sheer coincidence, the decide, a graduate of each the London Faculty of Economics and Yale Regulation Faculty, is the brother of Doug Liman, a significant Hollywood director.

Doug, recognized for engaged on hits equivalent to The Bourne Id and Mr & Mrs Smith, is represented by Artistic Artists Company – the identical company Hayek’s billionaire husband François-Henri Pinault purchased a controlling stake in again in 2023.

One Hollywood insider stated: ‘Whereas the judgment got here as a shock to many, it isn’t an unfair determination. The connections are there – however then I assume it’s Hollywood in spite of everything, and everybody is aware of everybody.’

The entire sorry saga unfolded final yr when Energetic – finest often known as Higher East Aspect ‘It lady’ Serena van der Woodsen in Gossip Lady – filed a civil rights grievance claiming Baldoni sexually harassed her throughout manufacturing of a movie adaptation of Colleen Hoover’s bestseller It Ends With Us.

She alleged he then retaliated when she spoke out. Baldoni, for his half, strenuously denied all the pieces. Energetic later escalated her claims, launching a proper lawsuit towards Baldoni.

The actor – and his firm Wayfarer Studios – hit again in January with a £400million countersuit, accusing Energetic and her husband Reynolds, Deadpool actor and proprietor of Welsh soccer membership Wrexham AFC, of defamation and extortion.

US District Courtroom decide Lewis Liman, proper, a graduate of each the London Faculty of Economics and Yale Regulation Faculty, is the brother of Doug Liman, left, a significant Hollywood director

However final week, Decide Liman threw out key components of Baldoni’s case. He dominated that the 41-year-old can’t sue Energetic, 37, for defamation over claims she made in a lawsuit, as authorized filings are protected speech and subsequently exempt from libel claims. He additionally stated Baldoni’s accusation that Energetic hijacked inventive management of the movie didn’t depend as extortion underneath California regulation.

And the decide addressed Baldoni’s claims that Energetic threatened to not promote the movie by stating Wayfarer by no means confirmed she had a authorized obligation to take action.

Liman stated Baldoni’s workforce could revise the lawsuit and pursue completely different claims associated as to if Energetic breached a contract. But it surely’s clear the tide has turned.

The decide additionally tossed out Baldoni’s defamation lawsuit towards The New York Instances, which had reported on sexual harassment allegations. Energetic and Reynolds are stated to be thrilled by the ruling, particularly after enduring Baldoni’s vicious PR warfare.

This was first uncovered in December, when messages emerged between Baldoni’s workforce and London-born disaster comms guru Melissa Nathan. ‘He desires to really feel like she could be buried,’ a publicist working with Baldoni wrote to Nathan final August.

‘You understand we are able to bury anybody,’ she replied.

Nathan – who has labored with the likes of Johnny Depp, Drake, Travis Scott and Simon Cowell – allegedly labored behind the scenes to kill tales damaging to Baldoni and spin unfavourable ones towards Energetic.

Nathan’s briefings to journalists – which some described as a ‘smear marketing campaign’ – is nothing out of the peculiar in Hollywood. However some have instructed that maybe she was too assured in her talents to take down Energetic.

Nathan wasn’t the one one. Certainly, due to her ways, many insiders genuinely feared Energetic had no likelihood of profitable the case – and that the couple had been headed for monetary wreck.

‘Melissa has a few of the greatest journalists in America on her aspect, so the inference you’d have gotten for those who had been a reader of the movie star publications within the States, and certainly in Britain, was that Justin would win this fingers down,’ stated one supply.

‘Melissa would do something for her purchasers, as would others in Justin’s camp. However what we’ve seen ultimately got here all the way down to proof seen by a decide – and it didn’t go Justin’s approach. It’s undoubtedly 1-0, and even 2-0 to Blake right here. Workforce Baldoni are unlikely to have favored this one little bit.’

Energetic’s authorized workforce stated in an impassioned assertion yesterday: ‘Immediately’s opinion is a complete victory and a whole vindication for Blake Energetic, together with those who Justin Baldoni and the Wayfarer Events dragged into their retaliatory lawsuit, including Ryan Reynolds, [publicist] Leslie Sloane and The New York Times.’

They added that they’re now going after authorized charges and damages, that means this courtroom showdown is way from over.

Baldoni hit again along with his personal assertion to the Each day Mail by way of his lawyer Bryan Freedman, insisting Energetic’s claims of sexual harassment that sparked the authorized warfare ‘are not any more true right now than they had been yesterday’ and in addition thanking the general public for his or her ‘unmitigated assist’.

Maybe Energetic’s workforce will now be hoping that this setback will persuade Baldoni to drop his lawsuit altogether.

One factor’s for positive: Energetic’s new finest good friend Salma Hayek might be throwing the get together of all events if she beats Baldoni as soon as and for all.