'It Ends With Us' Chatter Impacted Blake Lively Adversely: What's The Controversy About?

Blake Lively faced unexpected controversy with the release of her film It Ends With Us. The actor was caught off guard by the negative attention, which began with rumours of a feud between her and the film’s director and co-star, Justin Baldoni. This drama led to criticism of Lively’s promotional methods and comments, both recent and past.

Blake Lively Was “Vulnerable, Out of Control” Over It Ends With Us controversy

Now, People has reported quoting a source close to the actor saying that Lively was “pretty surprised at the backlash and drama” surrounding the film's launch. The report noted, "She felt very vulnerable and upset, as she was constantly in the news for unfavourable reasons during the film’s promotion. This level of drama is new to her."

Despite the turmoil, the source mentioned that Lively “felt out of control” but remained committed to her work. "She enjoys working and will continue to push forward with projects that excite her," they added.

What Was The Controversy?

Colleen Hoover's It Ends With Us, at its core, is a book about domestic violence. It illustrates the main character, Lily's, journey from falling prey to an abusive relationship, her thoughts as she navigated her way through it, and finally being a proud and free single mom. The 2016 book received as much attention as it did for this very reason, the sensitive themes it chose to address and in the bold way that it did.

However, after the release of the movie adaptation, controversy arose when Blake Lively did not even acknowledge the domestic violence part of the film, and has instead been marketing it as 'fun', 'summery', and 'cutesy'. 

After the release, Blake said, It Ends With Us is in theatres now, so grab your friends, wear your florals, and head out to see it.'' This received immense backlash from the public as they knew the movie's entire premise and goal was to highlight women who were trapped in abusive relationships, and definitely not a lighthearted movie about girlhood and love. 

In addition to this, she sidestepped a question about women reaching out to talk to her about DV by talking about how she should share her address and live location, with an awkward shift to talking about her being a Virgo. 

She has also been criticized for using the film to promote her new hair-care line. 

What Is Lively's Marketing An Issue?

Blake has been one of the most beloved actors in Hollywood since her role as Serena in 'Gossip Girls' and her seemingly picture-prefect relationship with fellow actor, Ryan Reynolds. However, her public image is becoming increasingly threatened as she continues to brush over questions about domestic violence in the film and portrays it as a fun rom-com instead of a serious film to spread awareness, which it undoubtedly is.

Fans believe that it is disrespectful to women who have actually been victims of domestic abuse, who are also the real target audience of the film. It should make these women feel like they are not alone in this situation instead of misleading the public.

Fans were also dissatisfied with the fact that the sensitive themes portrayed in the film may be triggering for a lot of people, as the movie did not contain any trigger warnings or disclaimers, in addition to the fact that its marketing did not prepare the audience for its content. 

What is happening between her and Baldoni?

There is undoubtedly something suspicious happening between Blake and her co-star Justin Baldoni, who also directed the film. They weren't seen together at the press tour nor did they participate in interviews together, and they even seemed to avoid each other at the premiere.

Most importantly, there is a noticeable contrast between the way both of them are marketing the film. Unlike Blake, Justin has been very open and frank about the theme of domestic violence in the movie. He even worked with an organization called No More, which works toward ending domestic and sexual violence, to make the film as realistic and truthful as possible.

He said in an interview with CBS, ''We need to be asking ourselves, why do men harm? (instead of ''why did she stay?'') And that was the big thing for me, and what I learned more and more and more of is these women who experience this every single day, there's real love there. There's charm. There's charisma. There's passion. There's this belief they can be better, and it's not so simple.''

"I want men to go to the theatre and in some ways see a version of themselves. You have two very different characters. Both of them in Atlas and Ryle have had past trauma," he added. "One handles it very differently than the other and my other hope is the men who have not done the work, who have not done the work to heal, if they see bits of themselves in Ryle, have a chance to step back and say, 'You know what, I don't want to blow up my life. I don't want to hurt the person I love the most."