Justin Baldoni had an axe to grind.
As his colossal legal war against Blake Lively continues, we’re learning more and more about the set of It Ends With Us.
In 2023, the director sent a flurry of bitter texts, complaining about the lead actress’ requirements for intimacy scenes.
Texts only show a part of a larger picture. But he was clearly unhappy — and believed that Lively was setting a “trap” for him somehow.
She’s ‘setting me up for a trap’
According to legal documents that Page Six obtained, Justin Baldoni 2023 text messages conveyed his deep suspicions and resentments towards Blake Lively.
“She’s refused a body double,” he complained to his former William Morris Endeavor agent Danny Greenberg.
While lamenting that Lively apparently wanting him to use a body double, he waxed conspiratorial about the disagreement.
He told Greenberg that Lively was “just setting me up for a trap.”
These messages are from December 30, 2023.
Baldoni went on to complain about what he called a “really bad week.”
Lively, he lamented, had disagreed with multiple ideas that he had for sex scenes in It Ends With Us.
According to him, Lively had suggested that the both “keep all of both of our clothes on for the big love scene.”
This, Baldoni commented, was “just ridiculous if you know the book.”
(Normally, clothes on for a sex scene is very cringe and weird unless it makes sense in context, but It Ends With Us is not a romance story but a story about an evil abuser and a woman who only partially escapes, so that could be a factor)
In his mind, this was always about control — not sexual misconduct
“The whole thing is just a gigantic cluster f–k,” Baldoni complained in the texts.
“And yet I’m doing my best to stay positive,” he claimed, “although it’s been very draining on me.”
Baldoni wrote that it had been “time-consuming over this break to be dealing with an actress who is rewriting the writer and Director.”
Repeatedly, the actor has characterized his conflicts with Lively as a fight over control, and not as sexual misconduct.
Baldoni went on to allege that he was letting Lively have her way on “95%” of her demands “for peace.” Still, he griped that it was a “brutal experience.”
“I’m doing my best to just stay positive and give her as many wins as possible to just finish this thing,” Baldoni claimed. “But it’s gonna be tough at some point.”
In a line that reads as somewhat ironic in 2026, he claimed that Lively was “destroying her reputation.”
Baldoni then predicted: “Where we will need the most help is during the Edit because I’m not going to get everything she wants and I foresee that being a big issue.”
Among his complaints was that Lively didn’t want Wayfarer Productions’ CEO Jamey Heath on the set.
Obviously, all of this comes from Baldoni’s perspective during the production of the film. What does Lively think of all of this?
For context, late December 2023 was after actresses had filed complaints
An inside source told Page Six that “these messages were sent only after Blake had laid out in detail the numerous ways that Baldoni and Heath had created a hostile work environment on the set.”
The insider specified that this was “after they agreed to more than a dozen ‘protections’ for the safety of the cast and crew.”
Additionally, the source noted that the texts came”just days ahead of the January 4 meeting at which these protections would be discussed before filming resumed.”
The insider reasoned: “The text chain underscores Baldoni’s retaliatory intent.”
Continuing, the source added: “It reflects his private anger over the same safeguards that he had said in public were both ‘reasonable’ and ‘essential,’ and which he later admitted in his deposition were reasonable, including his resentment for having to show up to an ‘all hands’ meeting he had also agreed to.”