When production for the adaptation of the Colleen Hoover Novel It Ends With Us started back up in January 2024, after a long hiatus brought about by the Writer’s Guild and Screen Actors Guild strikes, what followed were rumors of contention and conflict on-set and especially in post-production. It initially seemed like mere creative differences, with star Blake Lively clashing with co-star and director Justin Baldoni over how to best embody the intentions of the wildly popular novel. It has since blossomed into a feud that has been in the celebrity news cycle for a year straight.

Baldoni, for his part, has claimed that Lively used her status to strong-arm creative aspects of the production, sneaking in dialogue written by her husband Ryan Reynolds and even commissioning a re-edit of the film. It’s unclear if a cut of the movie edited by Shane Reid, who Reynolds leveraged for Deadpool and Wolverine and Lively tapped when she directed the Taylor Swift music video “I Bet You Think About Me”, replaced or influenced the final cut of It Ends with Us, but, for whatever it’s worth, Oona Flaherty and Robb Sullivan are credited as editors, not Shane Reid.

The press tour for the film told more of the story. The competing narratives were of Blake Lively not treating the subject matter of the film, which centers around escaping domestic violence, with proper deference and of how she and her coworkers physically and vocally distanced themselves from Baldoni, who similarly not-so-subtilely spoke of Lively’s alleged tampering. Like when he was asked if he’d return to direct the sequel and said “I think Blake Lively’s ready to direct.”

It initially looked like Baldoni would get the better of the exchange in the court of public opinion, early in the summer of 2024. The movie was well-received, despite the press tour drama and rumors, garnering favorable reviews and $350m at the box office against a $25m budget. But Baldoni has certainly come out the worse for wear, and Lively has endeared herself to the public, with powerful allies not limited to her costars on the movie Jenny Slate and Brandon Sklenar and the author of the book that inspired it, Colleen Hoover.

This may also have to do with the fact that the more info that comes out, the worse it looks for Baldoni. It has since come to light that the dispute goes deeper, with Lively allegedly expressing discomfort at sexual comments made and her physical boundaries not being respected while on set. This allegedly took the form of Baldoni taking the intimate aspects of the scene further in rehearsals than was called for in the script. And Lively said early on that the director insisted upon adding gratuitous sex scenes to the film. Documents that have been made public since show that Lively made explicit safety demands that were formally agreed to by Baldoni’s Wayfarer production company, including bringing on an intimacy coordinator.

Wayfarer and Baldoni allegedly went into damage control, hiring a crisis management expert, which I think is a fancy name for a P.R. Übermensch, to mitigate the repercussions of Lively’s complaints becoming public. The people involved have LinkedIn Profiles, which are barely legitimized CraigsList ads, citing expertise shaping the narratives around famous people. Text messages that have been made available since feature a P.R. firm agent stating that Baldoni “wants to feel like she can be buried”, referring to Blake Lively, and the crisis coordinator, Melissa Nathan, replying that they “can bury anyone”.

And it seems like the team, who had previously worked with high-profile clients like Johnny Depp and Drake, certainly tried, in the form of an expensive SEO and social media campaign to characterize Lively as difficult to work with, controlling, flippant, disrespectful, and the like, which explains that narrative that was tough to escape that she didn’t care enough about the subject matter to pay it the proper respect.

Blake Lively did initially experience a loss of followers on social media platforms, for whatever that’s worth, and her haircare company saw a significant drop in sales. Hard to shed a tear over money lost by someone worth tens of millions of dollars and whose husband is worth hundreds of millions, but it’s not as hard to root for an alleged victim.

The conflict between Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni seriously escalated in December 2024, when Lively filed a formal complaint with the California Civil Rights department against Baldoni and his production company. The complaint presented the acts of harassment and abuse as evidence of a hostile work environment, and the social media campaign against her as retaliation for complaining about it. This coincided with a lawsuit against Baldoni directly for sexual harassment. Her team’s public-facing weapon was a thorough account in the New York Times, fittingly titled “‘We Can Bury Anyone’: Inside a Hollywood Smear Machine”. It would be the first most of the public would hear of her account of her treatment while working on the set of It Ends With Us.

Baldoni was pretty much immediately dropped by his talent agency, the same WME that represents Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds. Baldoni’s team has accused Reynolds effectively forcing WME to drop Baldoni, but I’d think it has at least as much to do with not being associated with a man accused of running a movie set where one of their clients didn’t feel safe.

Baldoni also pretty much immediately sued The New York Times for $250m, accusing them of misrepresenting the facts because Blake and Ryan wanted them to. Baldoni and his team have not yet sought to discredit the events purported by the New York Times and others, but reframe them as more innocent than presented, for whatever that’s worth. Maybe they’re saving that for court. Baldoni was also sued by his ex-publicist over other business matters in the same month. And he had an award he received from a feminist organization rescinded. And the cohost of his podcast, journalist Liz Plank, dropped out, notably stating that “We all deserve better”. Not a good month for Mr. Baldoni.

The public, peasant and celebrity alike, has rallied around Blake Lively and against Baldoni, almost universally delineating it as a one-sided conflict in which one party is entirely the victim and the other the abuser. It seems like the PR machine hired by Baldoni didn’t quite do their job. I wonder if he can get his money back. He may need it to pay his lawyer.

Baldoni’s team has been in full damage control mode, with his lawyer Bryan Freedman making high-profile television appearances projecting confidence in their side of the story and their intention to countersue. Some of Lively’s text messages have also been subpoenaed, which is a terrifying prospect, and the big gotcha seems to be that she also used the term “sexy”, with regard to her character and costume, so that makes it okay that Baldoni used it in a similar context, or something. I dno.

Another complaint from Baldoni’s team was a physical intimidation by Ryan Reynolds that supposedly came about when Baldoni made a comment on Lively’s weight. At issue in all of this is how everyone deserves workplace safety, but did he think he could fat-shame a guy’s wife and the guy just idly stand by? Maybe he should have kept his wife’s name out his fuckin’ mouth.

If I take a step back, Blake Lively kinda sucks for trying to take over the movie, but so does Justin Baldoni, even for just how he’s traversing the wreckage. Lively has way better PR, clearly, but if a fraction of what she said is true, then it’s like “She used her status to re-edit my movie” vs. “He sexually harassed and maybe even assaulted me on a movie set”. I don’t want to choose sides, but one of those seems more pressing.

And now Baldoni insists that and is set to sue over Nicepool from Deadpool and Wolverine being an extended joke about him. This is the best kind of self-own. Let’s talk about Nicepool a bit. He’s a shallow, fake nice guy in a shitty man bun that presents veiled insults as compliments and purports his status as a feminist as a defence for questionable behaviour. I adore Nicepool, but I wouldn’t publicly admit that I embody his worst aspects. To be fair, the name Gordon Reynolds is credited as depicting Nicepool and was also in the special thanks for It Ends With Us, so maybe there’s some fire to this smoke. It’s also Ryan Reynolds’ go-to pseudonym ever since he coined it for a sketch for GQ in 2016, so maybe not.

Nicepool also offers up plenty of gags and serves the story of the movie in other ways. And was more likely a way for Ryan Reynolds to make fun of himself and his own public image. Even if it was intended as a jab at Baldoni, if Blake Lively’s accusations against him approach truth, he can count himself lucky that being made fun of in a huge movie is one of his chief worries.

There are so many power dynamics in play in this. One of them is the the autonomy of a director to decide what’s best for a movie and an actor to explore what works for a scene and a character. Ideally, that wouldn’t come at the cost of another performer’s feelings of safety or comfort. It speaks to the necessity of checks and balances. There are people on the sets of big movies to ensure these protections, but they usually answer immediately to the director. There should be and usually is someone to check these people, but it really would be nice if they would check themselves.

This is far from over, but as it progresses, the case that Baldoni’s lawyers are making that he is set to lose millions in wages, as a result of the press and public statements bent against him seems legitimate. He seemed poised to be a big player in Hollywood, perhaps especially with a potential sequel to It Ends with Us. Seems like now all that’s in the pipeline for him is a series of lawsuits. Melissa Nathan seemed confident in her team’s ability to bury Blake Lively, but, in her best Lady Deadpool impression, she seems to have bounced right back. I guess Justin Baldoni pissed off the wrong Hollywood power couple, like a fuck around and find out kinda situation. Or maybe he totally deserves whatever fallout awaits him because he’s actual garbage. Or, like most things, the truth is somewhere in between.

The post The Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni Situation: A Deep Dive Into One of the Biggest Hollywood Scandals in Years appeared first on JoBlo.