The It Ends With Us drama has continued off the screen for some time now. Since the movie’s release in August 2024, Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni have battled it out legally over “unprofessional” behavior on the set.
As the legal battle continues, Colleen Hoover blasts Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni’s legal war, saying, “I have my own story I could tell.”
The movie, based on the 2016 novel by Colleen Hoover, was a highly anticipated release. Hoover is known for her romantic stories, and while she herself has had a lot of controversies in the genre, fans were raving over seeing the live-action adaptation.
However, when Lively accused Baldoni of sexual harassment and launched a smear campaign, the love for the movie quickly turned sour. Hoover talked about her thoughts on the battle during an interview with Elle, published Thursday.
“It feels like a circus,” Hoover explained. “When there are real people involved, with real feelings and emotions. This actually has impacted some of the actors’ careers in huge ways. And I just find it all around sad.”
The author said she’s trying to “stay removed from the negativity,” adding that although she has her “own story I could tell,” she doesn’t want to breathe more life into the controversy.
“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,” she went on in the interview. “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.”
The best-selling author, 45, went on to say that she’s even embarrassed to admit that she wrote the book because of the controversy that’s still going down.
Hoover continued, expressing that she mostly feels bad for her mom, whose experience of being in an abusive relationship with Hoover’s father was the inspiration for It Ends With Us. “The book was inspired by her story, and now it gives us PTSD to think about it.”
“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.”
Even though the drama surrounding the film is still ongoing, the movie did exceptionally well for itself, becoming a major box office hit. Because of this, more movie adaptations of Hoover’s novels are on the way. A film version of Verity and Reminders of Him are on the way, and Regretting You hit theaters this past October.
If you want to keep up to date with your favorite novel adaptations, keep checking back here for the inside scoop.