Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds attempted to throw Justin Baldoni under the bus for the negative reaction to her press run for It Ends With Us.
According to documents released on Baldoni’s newly launched website, Lively and Reynolds allegedly wanted Baldoni’s production company, Wayfarer Studios, to release a statement assuming responsibility for the film’s troubled production and deflecting negativity away from Lively.
To recap, Lively (and by extension Reynolds) received overwhelmingly negative public reaction while she was promoting It Ends With Us last summer. Apart from her seemingly “tone deaf” promotion of the film, online sleuths dug out old interview clips of her painting her as a “mean girl.”
The proposed statement, dated August 12, 2024, reads: “IT ENDS WITH US was a troubled production which we take full accountability for. We are very sorry to everyone we caused upset to privately and publicly.”
It goes on to claim that Lively, author Colleen Hoover, and the entire cast acted with “professionalism every step of the way,” while also emphasising that Baldoni’s team was learning from its mistakes.
Baldoni’s team, however, refused to release the statement. His reps at WME allegedly believed it was “vague, implies culpability without substance, and fails to address the issues at hand.”
They also argued that, rather than protecting Lively, the statement would likely “have the opposite effect.”
