Credit: Columbia Pictures

Colleen Hoover “embarrassed” amid Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni ‘It Ends With Us’ lawsuit

Sat 22 November 2025 9:45, UK

Author Colleen Hoover has admitted that she feels “almost embarrassed” to have written It Ends With Us, the book turned into a major motion picture, which ultimately led to the ongoing legal battle between Justin Baldoni and Blake Lively.

In a new interview with Elle magazine, Hoover acknowledged the legal mess that exploded out of the 2024 movie, deeming it “unfortunate” and “disappointing”.

In the movie, Lively plays Lily Bloom, who moves to Boston to chase her lifelong dream of opening her own business. There, she meets charming neurosurgeon Ryle Kincaid, played by Baldoni, but she soon uncovers his darker side.

Since the movie’s release, the two stars have been entangled in a messy legal battle over Lively’s case, which accuses her It Ends With Us co-star and director Baldoni of sexual harassment and retaliation, and also alleges that an online smear campaign was targeted against her. This case will head to court in March.

In June, Baldoni’s $400million defamation lawsuit against Lively was dismissed. A judge threw out Baldoni’s claims against Lively, her husband Ryan Reynolds, and their publicist for extortion, defamation, and invasion of privacy that the director and actor had made in January.

The matter is at the front of Hoover’s mind. “It feels like a circus,” she admitted. “When there are real people involved, with real feelings and emotions. This actually truly has impacted some of the actors’ careers in huge ways. And I just find it all around sad.”

She added, “I’m just trying to stay removed from the negativity. 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.”

The author then confessed, “I can’t even recommend it anymore. I feel like [the lawsuit] has overshadowed it. I’m almost embarrassed to say I wrote it. When people ask what I do, I’m just like, ‘I’m a writer. Please don’t ask me what I wrote.’”

Additionally, the book was based on her mother’s story: “The book was inspired by her story, and now it gives us PTSD to think about it.”

The whole lawsuit has been terrible for her mother, too: “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.”

Watch the trailer for the original movie below.