Following the release of the film adaptation of Colleen Hoover’s best-selling novel “It Ends With Us,” co-stars Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni became embroiled in a series of lawsuits. The legal dispute centers around allegations of contract breaches and assault.
“It Ends With Us” explores themes of domestic violence and emotional abuse as protagonist Lily, a florist in Boston, becomes trapped in an abusive relationship with her husband, Ryle Kincaid. “It Ends With Us” was released in the United States on Aug. 9, 2024; the film was a box-office success, earning $351 million worldwide. However, rumors of a feud between Lively and Baldoni began circulating before the film’s release.
Although the movie is centered around domestic violence, during the press tour, Lively focused on the promotion of her new haircare line and husband’s gin company, which offended many domestic abuse survivors. Lively was condemned for her remarks in an uncoordinated promotional tour video where she exclaimed: “Grab your friends, wear your florals and head out to see it.” Lively’s approach when promoting the film contrasted with Baldoni, who promoted the film by raising awareness of the voices of domestic violence survivors. However, according to Forbes and text receipts from Baldoni’s PR Crisis team, Baldoni saw the fallout against Lively and intentionally focused on spotlighting survivors of domestic violence in his interviews and social media content to appear more compassionate.
The backlash toward Lively reached a frenzy when Norwegian entertainment reporter Kjersti Flaa uploaded a 2016 YouTube interview with Lively that showed her responding rudely to Flaa celebrating her pregnancy. “The Blake Lively interview that made me want to quit my job,” Flaa said, according to Forbes. This interview and other similar cases have sparked negative opinions of her. “I am more supportive of Justin Baldoni because of all of the interviews of Blake Lively, who is a terrible person, is really mean to interviewers, and treats people poorly. But at the same time, she is technically the victim in this situation, so I think it’s very controversial on who to believe,” senior Malika Hill explained.
In addition to the press tour being described as “tone-deaf” by The New York Times, viewers started questioning why Lively and Baldoni never conducted interviews together or were photographed on the red carpet together at the film’s New York premiere on Aug. 6. Viewers also noticed that neither Lively nor Hoover follow Baldoni on social media platforms.
According to the BBC, just four months after the film’s launch in Dec. 2024, Lively filed a legal complaint accusing Baldoni of sexual harassment. The complaint also included Wayfarer Studios, Baldoni’s production company that released “It Ends With Us.” She also accused Wayfarer CEO Jamey Heath of sexual harassment. Lively subsequently enacted a lawsuit claiming that Baldoni orchestrated a crisis PR team and waged a “smear campaign” on social media to ruin her reputation. Melissa Nathan and Jennifer Abel, members of Baldoni’s crisis PR team, were also listed as defendants in Lively’s case. ““To safeguard against the risk of Ms. Lively ever revealing the truth about Mr. Baldoni, the Baldoni-Wayfarer team created, planted, amplified, and boosted content designed to eviscerate Ms. Lively’s credibility,” Lively’s team wrote in the filing, according to BBC.
The New York Times also published an article on Dec. 21 that reported Lively’s allegations against Baldoni and included text receipts as evidence of his alleged “smear campaign.” For example, the article incorporated a text Nathan wrote to Abel: “Imagine if a document saying all the things that he wants ends up in the wrong hands … You know we can bury anyone.” On Dec. 31, Baldoni’s lawyers filed a $250 million libel lawsuit against the New York Times, CNN reported. However, in a response to NPR, The New York Times called their story “meticulously and responsibly reported,” and verified to NPR that they intend to “vigorously defend against the lawsuit.”
Baldoni also issued a $400 million lawsuit against Lively, her husband Ryan Reynolds and her PR representative Leslie Sloane, suing them “on assertions of civil extortion, defamation, and invasion of privacy,” stated BBC. Baldoni’s lawyer Bryan Freedman deemed Lively’s claims “shameful” and “categorically false.”
