Justin Baldoni was not “in the best place” the month before his legal battle with Blake Lively began.
Baldoni, 41, addressed his anxious state of mind in an interview on the “Gent’s Talk” podcast, which was filmed in November 2024 and published in full on Monday, February 10.
“This morning I sent a text message to my best friend Jamie and the president of my company, Tera [Hanks]. And I told them that I wasn’t in the best place,” Baldoni, who cofounded Wayfarer Studios, told host Samir Mourani. “I told them that I was exhausted. That I haven’t given myself time to recover, or time to heal.”
He said: “I had an intense year. A lot of material success and a lot of emotional stress. It’s very hard on me and my family. And I wear a lot of hats. And I carry a lot.”
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Baldoni revealed that he was “having some anxiety” and having trouble sleeping. He said that he was “a work in progress” and wasn’t feeling like his “full self.”
“I love the people who work for us. I love the movies we make,” he noted, praising the production company he started in 2019. “I love the impact we have, and yet, sometimes it’s easy to … fall back into our programming and be swept away by the current of self and be kind of overtaken by the wave of success and opportunity.”
Baldoni acknowledged that he “can get lost in the same way that everybody gets lost, but healing isn’t linear,” he said.
Earlier that year, Baldoni released the romantic drama It Ends With Us, which he directed and starred in alongside Lively, 37. The movie made $351 million worldwide, but its success has been overshadowed by Baldoni’s fallout with Lively, who filed a legal complaint against him in December 2024, accusing him of sexual harassment during filming. She also claimed that Baldoni attempted to launch a smear campaign against her.
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Baldoni denied Lively’s allegations, and in January, he filed his own lawsuit against Lively, her publicist Leslie Sloane, and her husband, Ryan Reynolds. He is seeking $400 million in damages after accusing the trio of civil extortion, defamation, false light invasion of privacy and other claims.
In a recent interview with Us Weekly, licensed psychotherapist Marni Feuerman said the decision to go public with their lawsuits will emotionally affect both Lively and Baldoni.
“As of now, Blake and Justin have not chosen [a private] route and instead have gone in the opposite direction, basically declaring war on each other,” Feurman said. “[This] is certain to increase the emotional price they’ll pay both during the process and when trying to heal in the aftermath.”
