NEED TO KNOW
Colleen Hoover is getting candid on how Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni’s legal battle has changed the way she views It Ends With Us.
The bestselling author first published the novel in 2016, and it later became a sensation on TikTok, prompting a sequel book in 2022. Hoover, 45, has been open about how the novel and its themes of domestic violence are personal to her, loosely inspired by her own mother’s experiences.
It Ends With Us became the first of Hoover’s books to be adapted for the big screen, starring Lively, 38, as Lily Bloom alongside Baldoni, 41, who also directed the film.
Months after the movie’s August 2024 release, Lively sued Baldoni in December 2024 for sexual harassment and retaliation, which he denies, igniting a highly publicized legal battle. (It’s set to go to trial in March 2026.)
Hoover told Elle in a new interview that she is “embarrassed” to be linked to It Ends With Us now because of the public drama surrounding the film.
“I can’t even recommend it anymore. I feel like [the lawsuit] has overshadowed it,” she told the outlet. “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.’ ”
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The negative attention has affected her mother too, said Hoover. “The book was inspired by her story, and now it gives us PTSD to think about it,” she said. “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 added, “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.”
Hoover is also known for books like Verity, which will be a movie starring Anne Hathaway and Dakota Johnson in October 2026. Her book Regretting You became a movie earlier this year, and she co-wrote and produced Reminders of Him, in theaters March 13.
The author was deposed earlier this year in the ongoing court case.
When Lively’s allegations came to light in December 2024, Hoover showed support for the actress, writing on Instagram that Lively had “been nothing but honest, kind, supportive and patient since the day we met. Thank you for being exactly the human that you are. Never change. Never wilt.”
Hoover’s next novel Woman Down hits shelves in January, about a once-celebrated author dealing with a “viral backlash over her latest film adaptation” that makes her take a hiatus, per a synopsis.
