By Page Six | Created at 2024-12-23 14:55:41 | Updated at 2024-12-23 18:50:19
4 hours ago
The release of the highly anticipated movie adaption of Colleen Hoover’s book “It Ends With Us” was dominated by rumors of a feud between its main stars, Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni.
Fans first noticed something was off between the two when they failed to do press for the movie together and even seemingly avoided each other during the premiere on Aug. 6, 2024.
Multiple sources told Page Six at the time that Baldoni and Lively did not get along on set.
An insider first told us that Baldoni, who is also the director of the movie, made Lively feel “uncomfortable” and created an “extremely difficult” atmosphere on set for the cast in general.
And while sources who have worked with Baldoni told us he would never intentionally make anyone uncomfortable, additional insiders claimed “none of the cast enjoyed working with Justin.”
Four months later, Lively filed a sexual harassment complaint against Baldoni and accused him of trying to “destroy” her reputation.
Read on to learn everything we know about the “It Ends With Us” drama.
Creative differences
Part of the reason for Baldoni and Lively’s feud was reportedly because there were deep creative differences on set, according to the Hollywood Reporter. While Baldoni was the director, Lively was also a producer in the film.
“There was a fracture among the filmmakers in the postproduction process, wherein two different cuts of the movie emerged,” the outlet reported.
A source also said Lively commissioned a cut of the movie from editor Shane Reid, who worked on husband Ryan Reynolds and Hugh Jackman’s “Deadpool & Wolverine.”
Reid previously worked with Lively on Taylor Swift’s “I Bet You Think About Me” music video, which she directed.
The “Gossip Girl” alum highlighted one example of creative differences was using Lana Del Rey’s “Cherry,” which was “too charged and heavy,” in the film.
Rolling her eyes, she told Hits Radio UK, “They begged me to take it out of the movie. … I’m not supposed to be talking about this.”
Ryan Reynolds’ role
Lively and Baldoni’s creative differences could have been further fueled when Reynold seemingly took over the writing for one of the scenes in the movie.
During the movie’s premiere, Lively told E! News, “The iconic rooftop scene, my husband actually wrote it. Nobody knows that, but you now.
“He works on everything I do. I work on everything he does,” she noted at the time.
All hands on deck
Baldoni also revealed that Lively was “involved in every aspect” of its production.
“[With] every touch, she made [it] better,” he told “Extra.”
“I’m grateful to Blake for just being a powerhouse of a performer and an amazing collaborator and just all the people, the crew,” Baldoni added.
Passing the baton
After confessions of Reynold and Lively’s involvement, Baldoni suggested that he wouldn’t be returning as a director for the sequel, “It Starts With Us.”
While speaking with “Entertainment Tonight,” he called the actress, who played Lily Blossom Bloom, a “better” option to direct the possible adaption.
He also told Variety that he had yet to commit to the project despite his company, Wayfarer Studios, buying the rights for an “It Starts With Us” movie adaption.
“I haven’t even begun to think that far ahead. I’m trying to stay in the present as much as I can,” he told the outlet in July 2024.
Two separate camps
Baldoni walked the carpet during the movie’s premiere and posed only with his wife, Emily Fuxler.
Meanwhile, Lively posed with Hoover, Brandon Sklenar, who plays Atlas and Jenny Slate, who plays Alyssa.
She also posed with her husband and Hugh Jackman, who stars with Reynolds in “Deadpool & Wolverine.”
It was also reported that Lively and the cast watched the movie in one theater while Baldoni and his wife watched from another. Even when Hoover and Lively introduced the film before the screening, Baldoni was absent.
Absent Baldoni
Most notably, Baldoni has been promoting the movie and sitting for interviews solo.
On the other hand, Lively has done press tours with Sklenar, Isabela Ferrer, who plays a younger version of her character in the movie, and more.
Fans have also pointed their interviews suggest they are promoting two different movies as Baldoni speaks out about the film’s domestic violence theme, while Lively talks about the wardrobe and how abuse doesn’t “define” her character.
After days worth of backlash for “being tone deaf” and not speaking about the domestic violence her character experiences in the movie, Lively tried to fix things by sharing resources for abuse survivors in an August 2024 Instagram Story.
She also re-posted a BBC interview where she explained her character is more than just a “survivor” and a “victim.”
Although Lively has yet to address her rumored beef with Baldoni, Slate went viral for completely sidestepping a question about working with Baldoni, who was juggling being the director and an actor in the film.
“What an intense job,” the comedian quipped to Deadline. “To have to do so many things.”
Social media shade
Many fans have noticed that most of Baldoni’s co-stars do not follow him back on Instagram — and neither does the series’s author, Hoover.
Hoover and Baldoni first connected in 2019 when the latter secured the movie rights to her book.
Reynolds reportedly blocked Baldoni on the social media platform months before the film’s premiere.
Throwback footage
After a social media user shared footage of Lively and Baldoni seemingly arguing on set in 2023, news broke on Aug. 13, 2024, that he hired veteran PR crisis manager Melissa Nathan.
TMZ claimed the following day that Lively, who had recently given birth to baby No. 4, believed her co-star fat-shamed her on set by asking his trainer how much she weighed and how to avoid injuring his back when picking her up.
The outlet also reported that she felt he lingered too long during one of their kissing scenes.
Breaking her silence
In December 2024, Lively filed a sexual harassment complaint against Baldoni and accused him of trying to “destroy” her reputation with an alleged smear campaign.
She claimed that there had previously been an “all hands” meeting — with Reynolds also present — about Baldoni’s behavior.
At the time, it was allegedly requested that the director refrain from adding more sex scenes “outside the scope” of the pre-approved script, stop showing her “nude videos and images of women” and more.
Baldoni denied his co-star’s “shameful” allegations in a statement reading, “These claims are completely false, outrageous and intentionally salacious with an intent to publicly hurt and rehash a narrative in the media.”
He also hit back at claims that he had hired a crisis PR manager to engage in “social manipulation” against Lively.
His and Wayfarer Studios’ attorney, Bryan Freedman, told Page Six the hiring came as a result of Lively allegedly “threatening to not showing up to set, threatening to not promote the film, ultimately leading to its demise during release, if her demands were not met.”
