It Ends With This Lawsuit: Blake Lively vs. Justin Baldoni

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There is undeniable irony in the recent Hollywood legal drama between Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni over the film It Ends With Us, based on Colleen Hoover’s 2016 novel of the same name.  The story follows Lily Bloom (played by Lively) falling in love with Ryle Kincaid (played by Baldoni).  Their seemingly perfect relationship takes a dark turn when Ryle becomes abusive, prompting Lily to reconnect with her high school love, Atlas.  Hoover is mostly known for her “hugely popular books,” once described as “an addictive combination of sex, drama, and outrageous plot twists.” Fittingly, the off-screen production of It Ends With Us followed the same sentiment: full of drama, tension, and unexpected turns.

It Starts with Purchasing the Movie Rights

Justin Baldoni, best known for his role in the TV comedy Jane the Virgin, is also the Co-Founder and Chairman of Wayfarer Studios.  During the COVID-19 pandemic, several important aspects of this story were happening simultaneously: (1) Wayfarer was on the cusp of its formation; (2) Hoover’s 2016 book It Ends With Us was brought to Baldoni’s attention; and (3) the book was gaining widespread attention on social media, especially TikTok.  In 2022, Baldoni first approached Hoover about purchasing the movie rights for It Ends With Us.  Baldoni stated, “There’s an incredibly powerful message in this book” because it “explores themes of domestic violence and generational patterns of abuse.” (¶ 22 Baldoni’s Complaint).

When It Ends With Us premiered in August 2024, fans and press alike began to sense some tension between the two stars.  At both the New York and European premieres, it was noticeable that Baldoni was not posing for photos or participating in joint interviews with Lively.  Soon, articles started coming out reporting on alleged interpersonal conflicts on set before a storm of social media, gossip columns, and the tabloids released negative media coverage about Lively.  What really sent this situation over the edge was a New York Times article published in December 2024, claiming Baldoni hired a PR firm to conduct a smear campaign against Lively.

Just days before The New York Times article came out, Lively filed a complaint with the California Civil Rights Department alleging that her co-star and director, Baldoni, engaged in sexual harassment, retaliation, breach of contract, and defamation.  Lively further alleges that Baldoni and his business partner, Jamey Heath, were making unwelcome sexual comments and physical advances during filming.  Additionally, Lively raised these concerns with Wayfarer and claimed that Baldoni retaliated against her by orchestrating a public relations campaign to permanently damage her reputation.  Lively’s complaint lists a total of thirteen causes of action, focusing on sexual harassment, retaliation, and breach of contract.

Then, on December 26, 2024, Baldoni filed a $250 million defamation lawsuit against The New York Times for the article.  Lively’s official federal lawsuit was filed on December 31, 2024, in the United States District Court in the Southern District of New York (“S.D.N.Y.”).  On January 16, 2025, Baldoni filed a $400 million countersuit against Lively, her husband Ryan Reynolds, and their publicist, Leslie Sloan.  The case has now been consolidated into a single lawsuit: Lively v.  Wayfarer Studios LLC et al.  (Docket #: 1:24-cv-10049-LJL), with a total of 27 parties.  Case consolidation is an administrative process of joining separate actions arising out of the same transaction or occurrence.

It Continues With the Marketing Plan

With such a highly publicized lawsuit, many theories have emerged about how the conflict between Lively and Baldoni began.  For example, the public’s perception of Lively during the movie’s press tour in Summer 2024.  Lively once told an audience, “Grab your friends, wear your florals and head out to see [the movie],” because this is the perfect film for a girl’s night out.  It Ends With Us has undertones of the generational cycle of domestic violence (DV), and people felt that Lively had taken a tone-deaf approach while trying to capitalize on DV by promoting her personal brands.  However, the official Marketing Plan created by Sony specifically states that the movie’s stars needed to focus more on “Lily’s strength and resilience as opposed to describing the film as a story about domestic violence.” It also states, “[a]void talking about this film that makes it feel sad or heavy.”

Based on the Marketing Plan, it appears that Lively followed it, whereas Baldoni went rogue, as he decided to openly focus on the seriousness of DV.  Furthermore, Baldoni’s Complaint alleges that throughout the entirety of filming the movie, Lively was insistent on taking full creative control over everything she could, including wardrobe, the marketing strategy, and music.  (¶69 Baldoni’s Complaint).  Overall, Baldoni feels as if  “Lively stole Wayfarer’s movie, hijacked [the] premiere, [and] destroyed .  .  .  [their] personal and professional reputations .  .  .  .”  (¶ 4 Baldoni’s Complaint).

It Continues With the Producer Credit

When Lively first accepted the lead role of Lily Bloom, she also negotiated for an “executive producer credit,” which is common for “talent of her stature.” (¶ 27 Baldoni’s Complaint).  Under The Producers Guild of America’s Code of Credits for Producing Feature Films, an executive producer credit only applies to an individual who has made essential contributions by being an advocate during the early production phases by lending their expertise, counsel, influence, and resources towards the manifestation of the production, and “securing financing during those early phases.”

One of the first aspects Lively took control over was Lily’s wardrobe, which ended up receiving quite a bit of criticism on social media.  TIME Magazine described it as “a mismatched fever dream of workwear, sparkles, and bohemian fantasy .  .  .  a jarring distraction.” In the actual book, there are very few descriptions of Lily’s wardrobe, something Hoover herself has openly admitted because she doesn’t “care what [Lily] has on .  .  .  it’s about the conversation [the characters] are having.” However, it’s likely there were fan-made interpretations that created this “Lily aesthetic” encompassing simple and feminine outfits.

Fast forward to May 2023, the Writers Guild of America (“WGA”) and the Screen Actors Guild–American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (“SAG-AFTRA”) went on strike, and production was temporarily halted.  (¶ 63-65 Baldoni’s Complaint).  Once the strikes ended, Lively’s lawyer sent Wayfarer an email with a list of non-negotiable “Protections for Return to Production” that insinuated there was misconduct happening on set.  (¶ 75 Baldoni’s Complaint).  Baldoni believes she leveraged this document to seize control of the film because she refused to return to work unless the conditions were met.  (¶ 76 Baldoni’s Complaint).  During the break from filming and immediately upon return, Baldoni felt like Lively had completely taken over the entire movie and said in an email to his team, “I am waiving the white flag and submitting.  I am going to give her 98% of what she wants.” (¶ 124 Baldoni’s Complaint).

Eventually, Lively was able to cut her own version of the film, and then she replaced the editors and the composers with her own picks (all people who worked with Reynolds’ recent project(s)).  (¶ 140-143 Baldoni’s Complaint).  Now that there were two different versions of the film, the decision as to which version to release was in dispute.  Lively claimed that she, Hoover, and the rest of the cast would not promote the movie unless her version were chosen.  (¶ 146 Baldoni’s Complaint).  Once it got closer to the release of It Ends With Us, Lively refused to approve the marketing materials and threatened to “abandon her contractual obligations” if she wasn’t awarded a producer credit.  (¶ 152 Baldoni’s Complaint).  Ultimately, it was her version of the film that ended up being released, but Sony convinced Lively to “put back as much as Baldoni’s edit as they possibly could.” (¶ 146 Baldoni’s Complaint).  However, Lively ended up earning the prestigious P.G.A.  mark, which means that she performed a majority of the “producing work on a motion picture.” (¶ 6 and 153 Baldoni’s Complaint).

It Continues With The Sexual Harassment Claims

One of Lively’s main claims centers around her allegations that Baldoni acted inappropriately by ignoring well-established industry standards when filming intimate scenes, improvising “gratuitous sexual content and/or scenes involving nudity into the film (including for an underage character) in highly unsettling ways”, discussing his personal sexual experiences and previous porn addiction, and objectifying Lively and other women on set by commenting on their bodies as sex objects.  (¶ 42-67 Lively’s Complaint).  More specifically, Lively claims that after she had contracted to be in the movie, and without her knowledge or consent, Baldoni added physical intimacy scenes, including one requiring her to orgasm on camera with no intimacy coordinator involved.  (¶ 46 and 49 Lively’s Complaint).

To address Baldoni’s behavior, Lively and her legal team developed the above-referenced “Protections for Return to Production” document.  They claim that the list of requests was “reviewed and discussed in its entirety .  .  .  ” by both parties before they all agreed to it.  (¶ 3 Lively’s Complaint).  However, Baldoni’s Complaint includes an email from Lively’s counsel that said “The list we provided was not intended as a starting point for a negotiation.  Rather, it is a set of protection that needs to be in place in order for [Lively] to return to work.” (¶ 76 Baldoni’s Complaint).  Additionally, Baldoni’s Complaint mentions several times that it seemed as if Lively was confusing Baldoni’s behavior when he was in character and when he wasn’t.” (¶ 94 Baldoni’s Complaint).   He further speculates that this was because Lively was frequently talking as herself in scenes by making comments about Baldoni’s nose and her own porn watching habits.” (¶ 99-100 Baldoni’s Complaint).

It Ends With This Conclusion

There does not seem to be any surprise that this legal drama was the aftermath of making It Ends With Us into a movie because of how much Hoover romanticizes DV while spinning it into a sexual fantasy.  “It Ends With Us may be a flawed venture working with flawed material.” Baldoni maybe took the book for more than what it was because he described it as “[s]o damn romantic and beautiful and tragic and hopeful.” (¶ 23 Baldoni’s Complaint).  One of the biggest criticisms of the book is how Hoover romanticized being in a domestically violent relationship, and that may have been her intention—she wanted to write a romance novel and nothing more.

Colleen Hoover herself said in a 2017 interview that she always “write[s] to entertain, [she does not] write to educate or inform.” That perspective made Lively a fitting choice as lead actor and producer because she approached the story at surface level with a focus on style and marketability.  Baldoni, by contrast, had “the lofty goal of making a positive impact [o]n the world .  .  .” by making a movie about domestic violence instead of one about “sex, drama, and outrageous plot twists.” Ultimately, the film’s real conflict wasn’t just on screen—it was a clash of visions, egos, and personal narratives that spiraled into a public fallout.  Lively and Baldoni may have started as co-stars in a movie, but now they’re co-stars in a lawsuit with dueling scripts, competing edits, and no clear direction in sight.