Unless you’ve been under a rock, you’ve probably heard about the It Ends with Us Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni drama that has set social media ablaze, and we’re begrudgingly willing to break it down so you don’t have to do it.
Let the record show that everything we’ve learned about this behind-the-scenes controversy and speculation has been entirely against our will, as it’s annoyingly inescapable, but misery loves company.
Like a trainwreck, it’s hard to avoid or turn away from this mystifying PR nightmare on steroids.
It Ends With Us Controversy Precedes “Blakdoni-Gate”
Seriously, as someone who watches Lifetime films, adaptations of women’s fiction are perfectly fine on their own.
Women of all walks of life should have their stories told in various formats and forms of media.
However, It Ends With Us was a controversial book long before it became an equally controversial film.
For starters, and spoiler alert, one of the biggest criticisms of the novel is that the leads, Lily and Ryle, somehow manage to co-parent and practically still live together despite Lily divorcing him after his abuse becomes too much.
Essentially, the domestic abuse survivor shows her abuser grace and allows him to still be part of her life and the life of their child despite not seeking out any therapy, support, or anything else.
The implication is that while Ryle does bad things, he’s not “a bad person” and that somehow, Lily divorcing him is enough to stop his abuse, make her feel safe, and entrust this man with their daughter as well.
It’s neither realistic based on stats about domestic violence nor does it paint the best light about the seriousness of this issue, and that’s been controversial all on its own.
It essentially led to criticism that Colleen Hoover, the best-selling author, romanticizes abuse.
Her initial plans to create a coloring book inspired by her novel It Ends With Us further fueled that ire. This drew such backlash from those who found it tasteless to create a coloring book about a book on domestic violence that she dropped it.
Colleen Hoover is a polarizing author. Many are put off by her popularity and success, which do not exactly match the quality of her writing.
They also dislike her poor attempts at incorporating serious social issues into her books with the sensitivity and research necessary.
When Allyship Backfires: Justin Baldoni’s Passion Project Takes a Fiery Turn
Do you remember Justin Baldoni, that hot guy who played one-third of Jane the Virgin’s love triangle?
Anyway, his career has taken different paths since the JTV day.
Baldoni cofounded Wayfarer Studios, which produces a wide range of entertainment and media, from films and documentaries to television episodes and podcasts.
He also hosts his own podcast, “Man Enough,” in which he unpacks toxic masculinity with celebrities and others and discusses social issues.
Subsequently, this led to him giving TED talks on the subject matter and writing a book.
Baldoni and his production company acquired the movie rights to It Ends With Us when he read the book. He was inspired by it and decided to tell this story.
He opted to produce, direct, and star in this film, as it became a passion project for him to project awareness about domestic abuse and center the experiences of DV survivors in a narrative.
Baldoni even went so far as to course-correct the ending of the story in his rendition of the film as he consulted and collaborated with domestic abuse foundations, specifically No More, and wanted a more authentic and sensitive ending that truly reflected the experience of domestic abuse survivors.
All was seemingly well, but speculation came into play as this movie came to fruition and finally saw the light of day for audiences everywhere.
The Mindboggling Marketing Contrast from Hell
We all know marketing is a game, and money talks.
We’re all susceptible to marketing, which can either pique our interest or put us off entirely.
It Ends With Us is a marketing NIGHTMARE, and one genuinely has to wonder about the thought process behind it, but alas, that’s where the juicy drama starts to spill over.
Very few people can remember what the Penn-Badgley hit YOU was like when Lifetime, where the series aired before it became a hit on Netflix, marketed it.
For those of us who were there from the beginning, it was one of the most interesting cases of marketing contrast. The series was initially coy about the notion that it was a “love story,” even uttering those words in promos, whereas Netflix, right out of the gate, promoted it as the unhinged thriller that it is.
Alas, It Ends With Us far exceeded that marketing kerfluffle to a startling degree.
When the film was first promoted, with key art that was more somber in tone and monochromatic lighting that recalled an Indie film, it was blatantly apparent that this was a story about domestic violence.
Not even halfway through the trailer, Lily’s love story takes an unsettling turn when it becomes evident that the man she loves is actually abusive.
But somewhere along the way, the promotion takes a shocking turn, stirring up the ire of critics everywhere.
The more recent trailers aren’t blatant, with the story being specifically about domestic abuse and tend to highlight the love story component a bit more.
The film’s more recent key art gives the impression that it could be a rom-com.
Many of the setups in movies across the nation advertising and promoting the series are splashy with color and flowers, giving the impression that it’s a fun, girly, romantic chick flick.
The tone shift is so jarring that anyone who paid any attention (admittedly, few of us did) raised a brow at it.
OMG, The Girlies are Fighting?!
Speculation that something was amiss with the film’s leads started to take off during the press run when Baldoni and Blake Lively were never together.
Lively basically did press with almost all her other castmates by herself, and even her husband, but not Baldoni.
Meanwhile, Baldoni has only done press by himself.
He also didn’t introduce the film with Lively and Hoover at the premiere despite starring, directing, and producing it, which was odd.
When asked if he’d be game for doing the sequel (you guys, somehow, apparently, this book has a sequel? I don’t know), he did that diplomatic but potentially revealing thing and said that there were “better people” suited to direct it.
He also said, “I think Blake Lively’s ready to direct, that’s what I think. This isn’t my night — this is a night for all the women for whom we made this movie. This is a night for Blake; this is a night for Colleen. I’m just so grateful that we’re here, five years in the making.”
That ET interview sparked more speculation, and it continued to spiral from there.
However, he also discussed how he handled conflict and “friction” on set, implying that those things come with the territory when filming.
In that Elle UK interview, Baldoni references things like different visions, “navigating personalities,” and stepping back and ties it all together to say these are natural things that may happen to make beautiful art.
You guys, his statements are as flowery as the godawful promotional displays and Blake Lively’s hideous dresses. Sorry, not sorry.
Baldoni’s statements have been mostly positive with the thinly veiled implications that things were amiss, but do you know what it sounds like?
It sounds like a guy with halfway decent PR experience.
Is Justin Baldoni the ONLY One Who Remembers “It Ends With Us” is About Abuse?
Another noticeable component of the rift was that the entire cast and Colleen Hoover unfollowed Justin Baldoni on social media and didn’t interact with him much.
This sent people into a bigger tizzy because, apparently, that shit matters to people.
Let the record show that some of us don’t carefully curate our follower list, but you do you, friends!
Le gasp! If the entire cast and the author have kicked Justin Baldoni out of the playbox, obviously, he’s done SOMETHING wrong, right?
Time has yet to tell.
But what has given the general masses pause about jumping to conclusions about this is the small fact that Justin Baldoni has been the primary cast member actually speaking about the domestic violence theme in this movie.
He consistently speaks on this issue and doesn’t let anyone forget that this film’s central theme is domestic violence, and he intended to raise awareness about it.
Listen, we’re not even trying to pick sides in this feud, but the guy consistently has shown that this was a passion project; he actually read the book and had a clear story he wanted to tell and message to share, and he hasn’t let up on that since.
And then, there’s Blake Lively.
Love, Laugh, Blake Lively, and the Cringey Press Run
Easy, breezy Blake Lively exudes a “just vibes” demeanor (or facade, depending on who you ask).
And that’s fine. But do you know what it’s not? It isn’t the ideal personality to showcase when promoting a movie that focuses on such a serious topic as domestic violence.
In addition to the clear tension people picked up on regarding the cast of the film, the jarring difference in interviews between the leads was like gasoline poured on fire in speculation, yes, but a need to “take sides” in a feud we have little concrete information on in the first place.
For much of the press run, Lively has typically refrained or skirted around delving into the film’s most serious storyline revolving around domestic violence at best and seemed dismissive or deflected from it at worst.
And thus, she was deemed insensitive to the subject matter.
She also championed It Ends With Us as a “chick flick,” even proclaiming that the audience should “grab your friends and wear your florals” to go see it. However, she didn’t promote the DV component until criticism of her interview style and cavalier demeanor became overwhelming.
Lively also received criticism for promoting her haircare line, fashion, her and her husband’s beverages, and other similar products, which hasn’t exactly made viewers feel as if she’s taking the subject matter seriously.
And let’s be real, anyone who has seen even one of her interviews about this film would probably cringe. Lively isn’t doing herself any favors here, which only worsens everything.
If anything, she’s become the poster child for why public relations is a thing!
Power Couples and Power Struggles: Did Baldoni Get Pushed Out of His Own Project?
Do you know how we said that Baldoni bought the rights to the film, produced it, directed it, and starred in it?
Yeah, well, the news trickled in that Blake Lively also became an EP for this project.
Is it surprising? Nah. But could creative differences be at the root of all of this? Definitely.
With all the controversy and speculation swirling, we saw a shift as damning information via anonymous sources came to light.
Suddenly, unverified information is circulating, adding more context to the story.
Things we’ve learned amid all of this:
- Somewhere along the way, Blake Lively may have taken over creative control of the movie and made several edits to what Baldoni had established.
- There are even talks about two different edits of the movie, his and hers, and that his score was better with viewers, but we don’t know which of their takes is the final product. Lively supposedly commissioned her own cut of the film from editor Shane Reid, who was the editor of Deadpool & Wolverine.
- Blake Lively revealed that her husband, Ryan Reynolds, contributed to writing a pivotal scene from the movie The Rooftop Scene, which the screenwriter was unaware of until later. She also revealed that this was done during the dual actors/writers strikes.
- The film had an intimacy coordinator. However, Lively also took some control over those scenes, and there’s video footage of her showing Baldoni how to pull her in for a specific scene. Why is this important? Sorry guys, this shit gets even more exhausting.
Stop Trying to Make Barbieheimer Part 2 Happen
It’s obvious that Ryan Reynolds played a larger role in creating and executing his wife’s film than he should have.
But if folks weren’t already put off by the promotion of this film, the puzzling move to initiate a repeat of the Barbie/Oppenheimer dual press promotion was bizarre.
Now, Barbiehimer was technically problematic in its own right in the first place as it mashed a lighthearted female empowerment movie with the biopic thriller about the guy who created the bomb that killed thousands of people. But, you know, whatever.
Lightning can’t strike twice, however, and attempting a cutesy press run of pairing It Ends with Us with Deadpool & Wolverine had the former trying to capitalize off the latter’s interest and success was weird as hell.
It didn’t help that Reynolds tended to carry on the tone of Deadpool while having the least serious conversations about It Ends With Us and some of its cast.
Seriously, WHERE ARE THE PR PEOPLE?
Let the Smear Campaigns Commence!
Do you know how you diffuse a controversy that gets spun out of control? Diffuse it and mediate, maybe?
Ha! No, you add more fuel to the fire! Oh, they’re going to let this burn.
Now, it seemed like Blake Lively’s attempt to distract from her poor reception on the press tour was to finally release a post linking to information about domestic violence and a hotline.
Oh, yeah, and to possibly leak to TMZ the reasons she may have had justifiable reasons to ice out her costar.
Shade or Fact? We’ll Never Know
What were those reasons?
She implies that Baldoni fat-shamed her during her filming, which was after she had her fourth future Nepo baby, and that he “lingered too long” during a kissing scene.
But in that same revelation from TMZ, it’s shared that Justin Baldoni has a back injury and asked his trainer directly how much Blake Lively weighed so he could best work through a scene where he had to lift her without further aggravating his back injury.
Frankly, it sounds like a perfectly reasonable concern, and you know, he also didn’t tell her to her face that she was “heavy,” which doesn’t fall in line with “fat shaming,” but what do we know?
People also started to take issue with Blake Lively’s implication that Baldoni was inappropriate by “lingering too long” during a kissing scene because the video footage, other sources, and Lively herself admitted that she acted as intimacy coordinator during parts of the film.
But maybe she did that because she felt uncomfortable with how the actual intimacy coordinator was working. Whether it was a real issue for concern and genuine discomfort or this is bolstered to make one side more sympathetic than the other, that’s a serious situation.
Have you guys had enough of this hot mess express of gossip?
Bring In the Adults, Wait, Not Those Adults!
If it wasn’t abundantly clear that everything had spiraled out of control and a full-on war was brewing, with all of the drama and the random sources leaking information, Justin Baldoni took a big step.
Baldoni hired a PR point person to combat the clusterfuck that is rumors, speculation, and gossip that has blown up around this movie.
Great news, right?
Well, not exactly, since the PR crisis manager Baldoni hired is Melissa Nathan, who represented Johnny Depp during the Amber Heard trial.
While up until this point, the tides were mostly in Justin Baldoni’s favor in the court of public opinion, things have ironically gotten murky NOW because he hired the lady who allegedly ran a smear campaign against Amber Heard and defended an abuser.
Again, the irony of that, given the nature of this film and Baldoni’s primary focus in advocating for domestic abuse, isn’t lost here, making this far messier than the guy could’ve ever imagined.
Blake Lively was already catching flack as the public conjured up her previous beef with actresses, speculation about her behavior on other projects, her antebellum romanticizing article, plantation wedding, and “mean girl” interviews.
And that has only increased tenfold recently, prompting people to argue that Baldoni has instigated a misogynistic/sexist smear campaign against her to combat the smear campaign she may have lodged against him. IT’S ALL SO UGLY!
It Ends With Us Not Wanting to Watch or Hear About This Film Again…
Something tells us that the drama has only just started and could progressively worsen.
There are so many ways to spin the narrative, as to some, Justin Baldoni is the “Fake Nice Guy” who is willfully turning the masses against a woman, and a profoundly sexist society is gleeful to see a woman fall from grace.
But to others, Blake Lively and Reynolds are a powerful and wealthy Hollywood couple with many connections who strongarmed a guy into giving over his project. They used their power and connections to cast Baldoni out and lead others to follow suit.
Hell, even the sources from Ryan Reynolds’ camp, according to the Daily Mail, meant to defend Lively and dig at Baldoni heavily confirm that Reynolds came in to support his wife and basically “jumped in to help the film from disaster” because he felt the script needed help and thus collaborated with his wife to ensure it was at its best.
Ironically, all sides are basically acknowledging that Lively and Reynolds took over, and Baldoni felt some type of way about it.
In the end, it’s abundantly clear that Justin Baldoni’s initial vision for this film, which shared a powerful message about domestic violence, has long since been buried beneath the drama.
It’s unfortunate.
Despite the Drama, the Film Is Successful (Boo!)
Nevertheless, with Hoover’s massive fanbase, people may want to see the hype behind the drama. Maybe even with the boost from Deadpool & Wolverine, the film is performing incredibly well, coming in second at the box office after Deadpool & Wolverine.
But there are also many reports of individuals who felt misled about the film’s premise, and the domestic violence storylines triggered them.
We’re sure a dozen more aspects of this drama will unfold.
Maybe the truth of it all is that everyone involved sucks, and the movie does too. That’s for you all to decide.
You can do what you like with those new factoids, but alas, we’ve summed up the drama as best we can.
Frankly, if we never hear of “It Ends With Us” again, it’ll be too soon. But that’s what you missed on ridiculously petty celebrity drama crammed down our throats.
Over to you, TV Fanatics.
Have you been following along with the drama? Are you Team Blake or Team Justin? Would you tune into the film?
Hit the comments below.
