Blake Lively privately reached out to Ben Affleck in 2024 to voice serious concerns about her experience working with Justin Baldoni, newly unsealed court documents reveal, shedding fresh light on the escalating legal battle surrounding It Ends With Us.
The email, along with text messages involving Taylor Swift and deposition statements from Jenny Slate and Isabela Ferrer, is now part of the growing paper trail tied to Lively’s lawsuit.
According to the documents, Lively emailed Affleck on May 17, 2024, describing what she called one of the worst experiences of her career.
She made it clear the message came with “zero pressure,” but explained she was seeking feedback on her own edit of the film after what she characterised as months of turmoil behind the scenes.
“I’ve just come out the other side (well almost) of the most upsetting experience I’ve ever had on a movie,” she wrote, adding that the story behind the production was more dramatic than the film itself.
In the same message, Lively claimed she rewrote and restructured the entire script and effectively directed the movie through what she referred to as a “chaotic clown ‘director’/actor/producer/financier/studio head at the center,” stressing it was “all the same person.”
She went on to allege serious internal issues, including “wild HR issues and beyond,” and described being placed in a last-minute editing “bake off” after Baldoni had been working on his version for months.
Lively asked Affleck if he would be willing to watch the film and offer notes, even welcoming feedback from his family while flagging the movie’s domestic violence themes.
Emphasising how much the project had cost her emotionally, she wrote, “This movie nearly killed me,” adding that she could think of few people whose insight she trusted more.
She also mentioned that Ryan Reynolds had asked Matt Damon to watch the film, jokingly marveling at the idea of “Jason Bourne” seeing her work, while expressing gratitude for what she called “good men showing up.”
The email surfaced amid Lively’s broader legal claims filed in December 2024, in which she accused Baldoni of sexual harassment and a coordinated effort to damage her reputation.
Baldoni has denied the allegations, with his legal team calling them false, and his countersuit was dismissed earlier this year.
The newly released documents offer a deeper look at how isolated and overwhelmed Lively says she felt as the conflict unfolded behind closed doors.
