Colleen Hoover isn’t happy with how it ended.
Hoover, who wrote the bestseller “It Ends With Us,” has addressed the controversy surrounding the 2024 film adaptation of her novel, starring Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni, saying the conflict between the two actors was “unfortunate” and “disappointing.”
“It Ends With Us” was a sleeper hit with $350 million globally, but the film became a lightning rod for drama due to disputes between Lively and Baldoni — who also directed the film for Sony Pictures. Months after the movie was released, Lively filed a lawsuit to accuse Baldoni and his production company Wayfarer Studios of sexual harassment and retaliation, alleging the director and producers had launched a smear campaign against her after she complained about on-set conditions. A trial for Lively’s suit against Baldoni and Wayfarer Studios is scheduled for March 2026. Baldoni has denied the allegations and filed a $400 million countersuit against Lively.
“It feels like a circus,” Hoover said in an interview with Elle magazine. “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.”
Hoover served as an executive producer on “It Ends With Us” and visited the set but was “completely unaware that anything was happening” between Baldoni and Lively at the time. She’s now preparing to give a deposition for the case within a few weeks; otherwise, she’s 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,” she told Elle. “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.”
After this experience, Hoover admits she has mixed feelings about the novel, which was based on her mother’s life. The story, which deals with domestic violence, follows a flower shop owner whose charming neurosurgeon husband gets physically abusive with her.
“The book was inspired by her story, and now it gives us PTSD to think about it,” Hoover said of her mom. “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.”
Hoover revealed she’s now “almost embarrassed” to tell people she wrote “It Ends With Us,” but hopes she’ll feel differently once the trial concludes.
“I can’t even recommend it anymore. I feel like [the lawsuit] has overshadowed it,” the author said. “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.’ The more time that passes, the easier everything gets for all of us. But it is sad, because I was very proud of that book. And I’m still proud of it, but less publicly so. Maybe I need therapy, I don’t know.”
Despite the drama, Hoover has become a major force in Hollywood. An adaptation of her book “Regretting You” was released by Paramount in October and grossed $82 million to date. Two of her other novels, “Verity” and “Reminders of Him,” are being adapted by Amazon MGM and Universal, respectively, for theatrical release in 2026.
