It Ends With Us continues to cause controversy, with producer Blake Lively and director Justin Baldoni locked in a legal battle since the 2024 box office hit’s release.
Lively, 38, filed a federal lawsuit against her former co-star and director in December 2024, accusing Baldoni, 41, of sexual harassment and for allegedly coordinating a smear campaign against her. Baldoni has denied the allegations, filing a $400 million countersuit that has since been dismissed.
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With a trial for Lively v Wayfarer Studios set for March 2026, the Colleen Hoover adaptation continues to make headlines, with its name becoming synonymous with the ongoing scandal.
And while Hoover herself has previously stayed out of the narrative, she officially broke her silence this week, opening up about her sadness at the situation in a recent interview with ELLE.
“The book was inspired by [my mother’s] story, and now it gives us PTSD to think about it,” Hoover explained, with the novel exploring the generational cycle of domestic violence. “I feel awful because I almost feel like she’s gone through more with the aftermath of this film, more pain than she went through with my dad, just seeing the ugliness of it.
“I can’t even recommend it anymore,” she added. “I feel like [the lawsuit] has overshadowed it. I’m almost embarrassed to say I wrote it.”
“It feels like a circus when there are real people involved, with real feelings and emotions,” continued Hoover, who served on the project as Executive Producer. “This actually truly has impacted some of the actors’ careers in huge ways. And I just find it all around sad.
“I’m just trying to stay removed from the negativity,” she later reflected, touching on her decision not to get involved in the online narrative. “I have my own story I could tell … but I don’t want to bring attention to it, and I don’t want to have to put someone else down to lift myself up. So I’d rather just ignore it and let people think and say what they’re going to say.
“I feel like it’s so big at this point that there’s nothing anyone can say to change whatever opinion people have of it, even though no one has the actual truth. Not even me.”
Read the full interview online at ELLE.
We will continue to update this story.