Blake Lively, Not Justin Baldoni, Controlled Young Lily’s Intimate Scene in ‘It Ends With Us,’ Leaked Text Messages Confirm

Blake Lively’s ongoing legal battle with Justin Baldoni has taken another twist, and this time, newly revealed text messages might actually be helping Baldoni’s case more than hers.

According to a report from Business Insider, Lively’s legal team is pushing hard to subpoena Rob Sullivan, the editor of It Ends With Us. They’ve had trouble getting him to appear, but in trying to prove why his testimony matters, Lively’s team shared screenshots of private text messages between people who worked on the movie.

Some think this move was a mistake, including reporter Kjersti Flaa, who called it a big “blunder.”

One of the texts reads, “When she claimed she was unsafe – she redid the n**** rider to get approval of young Lily too.” This refers to Lively allegedly changing the contract so that she had to approve any intimate scenes for young Lily, the character played by Isabela Ferrer. The reason given in the texts? “She wasn’t a part of writing that s** scene.”

The conversation, which Lively’s own lawyers submitted in court, starts with editors Rob Sullivan and Oona Flaherty celebrating that the movie earned a PG-13 rating. They were joined in the chat by someone identified as Henny Grace. At one point, Flaherty asked if the team was “keeping the thrust” in the film. Grace responded, “That’s gonna end up being a Blake call honestly. If you can get her to keep it in and it’s in the movie when I get it back it can stay in. She has ‘approval’ of that scene.”

But it wasn’t just about one scene. Grace went on to explain that even intimate moments for the younger version of Lily needed Lively’s sign-off. “And didn’t want a character depicting her to have s** in high school. Honestly – it’s all about control so she could get where she will be next week. All good.”

This adds weight to Baldoni’s earlier claims that Lively, along with her husband Ryan Reynolds, took over creative decisions on the movie. He has argued that there were multiple rewrites and changes that he did not fully control, even though he was the director.

Interestingly, the texts that seem to show Lively’s heavy involvement were originally given to her legal team by Baldoni himself after one of her subpoenas. But now that they’ve been made public, they reveal that even the movie’s editors appeared frustrated with her control. When Grace pointed out Lively had to approve young Lily’s scenes, Sullivan simply replied, “SMH.”

Grace also added, “Honestly – it’s all about control so she could get to where she will be next week.” These remarks suggest that some crew members saw her influence as more than what’s typical for an actress, even if she was also a co-producer.

While Lively’s lawyers shared the texts to show why Rob Sullivan’s testimony is important, the messages could end up supporting Baldoni’s version of events, that Lively had far more say on the film than she has admitted.

𝚕𝚒𝚕𝚢 𝚋𝚕𝚘𝚘𝚖'𝚜 𝚒𝚜 𝚗𝚘𝚠 𝚘𝚙𝚎𝚗. #ItEndsWithUsMovie – exclusively in theaters august 9. ♡ pic.twitter.com/MmfoRMSf1P

— It Ends With Us (@ItEndsWithUs) May 16, 2024

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