So, in layman’s terms, and in Justin’s lawsuit … he says that shows the NYT started building the allegedly defamatory article no later than October 31 — the date the outlet developed a tool to display the text messages which were such a prominent part of Blake’s lawsuit and the Times article about it.

Team Baldoni says that’s significant because the elements behind the now infamous article “strip away the legal shields that Lively, the Times, and other Lively Parties were likely relying on to protect their malicious acts of defamation.”

As we’ve reported, Justin is suing the NYT for $250 million — separate from his $400 million suit against Blake and Ryan — alleging the outlet cherry-picked and doctored text messages in its article, and colluded with Blake to support her attack on his character.

Justin’s attorney Bryan Freedman tells TMZ … “The decision to amend our lawsuit was a logical next step due to the overwhelming amount of new proof that has come to light. This fresh evidence corroborates what we knew all along, that due to purely egotistical reasons Ms. Lively and her entire team colluded for months to destroy reputations through a complex web of lies, false accusations and the manipulation of illicitly received communications.”

Freedman adds, “The ongoing public interest in this case online has ironically shed light on the undeniable facts pertaining to The New York Times and how heavily Ms. Lively and her representatives were not only deeply involved in the attempted take down and smear campaign of Mr. Baldoni, Wayfarer Studios and their teams but that they themselves initiated it.”

The amended suit also includes a more than 150-page timeline that lays out, in meticulous detail, the sequence of Blake’s alleged campaign to destroy Justin. How detailed is it? It goes all the way back to January 1, 2019, when Justin emailed Colleen Hoover, the author of the “It Ends With Us” novel … and follows, step-by-step, through this saga to January 29, 2025.