Inside the ongoing curse behind It Ends With Us author Colleen Hoover as Blake Lively sues co-star Justin Baldoni for sexual harassment

Author Colleen Hoover’s streak of bad luck has seemingly been extended as the film adaptation of her novel It Ends With Us has met with further scandal.

Blake Lively is suing her former It Ends With Us co-star and director Justin Baldoni over allegations of sexual harassment – months after the film hit cinemas.

The Gossip Girl star, 37, has now claimed that Baldoni, 40, fostered a toxic workplace environment, which included the director showing her nude videos and images of other women and discussing his previous alleged porn addiction. She also accuses him of trying to ‘destroy’ her reputation with a PR smear campaign. 

However, the new allegations are only the latest drama that Hoover’s novel has faced – as It Ends With Us previously saw complaints from fans about how it was promoted given its depiction of domestic violence amid rumours of a press tour feud. 

The 45-year-old author from Texas is no stranger to controversy herself and the novelist, who went from being a minimum wage social worker who self-published her first work in 2012 – to a household name – has been heavily scrutinised over the years.

While she first found a devoted following on BookTok, often topping influencers’ recommendation lists, her former fanbase has since turned on her and videos often brand the star’s writing as ‘bad fanfiction’.

Elsewhere, Colleen has bizarrely been embroiled in the downfall of a pirate e-library that thousands of students relied on for affordable textbooks, in what social media users dramatically called the modern ‘burning of the Library of Alexandria’.

Here, FEMAIL looks at Colleen’s past brushes with scandal, as It Ends With Us is put back under the spotlight once more.

IT ENDS WITH US PRESS TOUR ‘FEUD’

The first signs of a feud between Justin and Blake surfaced after fans noticed some suspicious behaviour between them during the It Ends With Us press tour.

The pair didn’t pose for any pictures together at the event, despite playing the two main characters and love interests in the flick.

She happily took photos with her other costars like Jenny Slate and Brandon Sklenar, but not Justin. 

Two days later, Blake attended a photo call in London for the film with some of the other stars – but Justin was mysteriously absent.

In addition, the two did not do any press together in the weeks leading up to the film’s release.

The film, which is based off of Colleen’s hit novel of the same name, follows Blake’s Lily Bloom, a floral designer who falls in love with neurosurgeon Ryle Kincaid, played by Justin – but soon after they start dating, the romance turns toxic. 

However, ‘all is not what it seems’ in regards to Justin, who reportedly clashed with the film’s leading star Blake amid production of the motion picture, a source told People.

‘There is much more to this story,’ a source told the outlet. ‘The principal cast and Colleen Hoover will have nothing to do with him.’

While the director had ‘creative differences’ with some of his collaborators on the motion picture, reports of tension while making the film had been ‘overblown,’ a source close to Justin told People Monday.

The source added that Blake ‘wants to direct the next movie, sidelining him and securing the rights from Colleen.’

Adding to the speculation about tension between the director and star of the film was Justin foregoing taking full cast pictures during the movie’s New York City premiere at AMC Lincoln Square on August 6, People reported.

Justin was pictured only posing alongside his spouse Emily Baldoni, relatives and producers at the debut of the film. 

The hard feelings between the pair could impact future projects in the franchise, as he might not direct a sequel based off Colleen Hoover’s 2022 book It Starts With Us, the follow-up to the current film’s source novel, 2016’s It Ends With Us.

‘I think that there are better people for that one – I think Blake Lively’s ready to direct, that’s what I think,’ Justin said.

The movie, which also stars Jenny Slate, Hasan Minhaj, Brandon Sklenar and Kevin McKidd, finished second at the domestic box office over the weekend with $50 million, and made $80 million globally, according to Box Office Mojo.

Justin spoke about the difficulties of portraying a domestic violence relationship on screen with CBS Mornings.

He admitted that ‘as a man,’ he came with ‘his own biases’ on the topic, but insisted he ‘made sure the film had a female gaze.’

‘As a man, I’m always going to come with my own biases. It’s one of the reasons I was afraid to direct this movie, let alone act in it,’ he said.

‘I wanted to make sure this film always had a female gaze and I was never putting myself into it.’

Social media users were desperately trying to figure out what went down between the stars after sensing some tension between them in the weeks leading up to the highly-anticipated film’s release. 

Despite being mired with rumours of a feud amid the cast, the movie was relatively positively reviewed for handling topics like abuse, trauma and recovery ‘unexpectedly well’.

The movie follows Lily Bloom (played by Blake), a floral designer who falls in love with neurosurgeon Ryle Kincaid (portrayed by Justin), years after losing touch with her first love, Atlas (played by Brandon), after he joined the military. 

But things get dramatic after Lily reconnects with Atlas after running into him at a restaurant, just as her romance with Ryle starts to turn toxic.

Giving it three stars out of five, Benjamin Lee for The Guardian wrote: ‘It’s a plot of hackneyed soap tropes but there’s a real maturity to how it unfolds, a story of abuse that’s far less obvious than we’ve grown accustomed to, the details far knottier than some might be comfortable with.’

Justin Baldoni – who is a main cast lead as well as the director was described as ‘big and shiny’ and ‘filled with perfectly lit restaurants and perfectly styled outfits, a cast of handsome people living handsome lives’.

‘Yet Hall’s dialogue, while often a little too simplistic, is rooted and believable and so the heightened world isn’t difficult for us to buy into and the emotional impact isn’t difficult for us to feel affected by,’ Benjamin added.

Giving it the same three-star ranking, Empire said that while the movie ‘is not short on clichés’ it also ‘manages to move beyond the usual expectations’.

‘Sure, there’s your bog-standard rooftop meet-cute between Blake Lively’s kookily dressed florist Lily Bloom and Baldoni’s hunky neurosurgeon Ryle Kincaid (both absurdly named characters) — but the pair share some real, intense chemistry, both actors wildly charming and charismatic when they need to be,’ John Nugent wrote.

However, some critics were less impressed. 

‘It Ends with Us is capable of poignancy,’ said Clarisse Loughrey of the Evening Standard.

‘Yet it’s also entirely ill equipped to square such sensitive material up against scenes of diamanté boots being sensually rolled down, an out-of-place but very funny Jenny Slate rocking up in a string of Carrie Bradshaw-worthy outfits, or Lively simply revelling in that deep, half-laughing voice that made her an icon of casual cool on TV’s Gossip Girl. This film’s good intentions feel misplaced.’ 

BOOKTOK DRAMA 

Colleen first found success on BookTok – but as quickly as her crown came, so it went.

Her books are mostly aimed at young adults and often focus on love and destructive  relationships, but the level of writing was increasingly criticised online.  

American TikToker TheCalvinBooks said: ‘Simply written, they do not stimulate your imagination or make you step outside of your comfort zone.

‘They trap new readers and make them feel like they’re only capable of reading her books.

‘They’re literally books written for people who don’t read because they are easy to read. Go to a beach and you’ll see a bunch of people reading them. Why? Because that’s the one place people who don’t usually read read. Furthermore representation is non-existent.’ 

Elsewhere, user Sydneykdai slammed Colleen’s writing as simplistic, calling it nothing but ‘bad fanfiction’.

The ways in which Colleen handles difficult topics have also been criticised. 

Her novels cover dark themes, such as abortion and miscarriage, and people who get together because of shared trauma.

But this is often done – according to some – in a relatively flippant way. She has been increasingly criticised by those who say her books can demean issues such as rape and domestic violence. 

In her 2014 novel, Ugly Love, the book explores the idea of sleeping with a man for long enough until he falls in love with you. 

While in It Ends With Us, there are violent scenes in a relationship. 

Lines in her books include men using physical force against women and holding them down, and women ‘selling themselves short’ to keep their men, even though they know they deserve better. 

In her novel Verity, the main character tries to kill her own unborn twins by drinking, taking pills and falling down the stairs because she’s worried they will take her husband’s attention away from her. 

This has led to some people – often young women – making BookTok videos in an attempt to explain and defend violence perpetrated by the characters, with the videos often getting many likes. 

Other TikToks videos see people ranking the ‘worst’ and most ‘cringey’ quotes in Colleen books in their videos. 

Blogger Pranjali Hasotkar said in a Medium post: ‘CoHo’s women don’t have a spine and they often get entangled in the web of good-looking men who do the bare minimum and get awarded with terms like ‘best fictional boyfriends’.

‘While genre-defying books do talk about things in gory detail, it’s not something people usually get inspired from. Romance, on the other hand, is everywhere; and if a writer as established as Colleen Hoover tells young girls to forgive banal male protagonists under the facade of blood-rushing romantic scenes- then that’s something to worry about.

‘Colleen romanticizes trauma that could inflict a lot of damage on someone who has experienced it or might have been through something remotely similar to what’s written. That being said, some people like her books, and are not perplexed by the thought that Colleen often blurs the line between toxicity and non-toxicity.’

Meanwhile, Piper Bailey, of The Butler Collegian wrote in an opinion piece: ‘The worst part about her writing style is that she gets away with it. There is nothing exciting or unique about it, other than it sounding like she put down her first thoughts and they somehow made it to the final cut.

‘Her novels are a complex concoction made from not being a good writer and being able to come up with plots so random they just barely make sense.

‘Reeling in readers with shocking quotes is definitely a way to sell your books, but some things are just better off left in your drafts.’

The author was also slammed after she revealed plans to release an adult colouring book based on her novel about domestic violence. 

She planned to use material from It Ends With Us, but fans accused her of cashing in on domestic violence in an attempt to keep her popularity up. 

Hoover then cancelled the project following the criticism. 

She wrote: ‘The coloring book was developed with Lily’s strength in mind, but I can absolutely see how this was tone-deaf.

‘I hear you guys and I agree with you. No excuses. No finger pointing.

‘I have contacted the publisher to let them know I would prefer we don’t move forward with it. Thank you for the respectful discourse and accountability. Nothing but love.’

The publisher Atria Books then also confirmed that the project was being cancelled following criticism from readers. 

In an Instagram post, a spokesperson for the company wrote: ‘Atria Books will not move forward with the publication of The Official It Ends with Us Coloring Book. 

‘Thank you for the honest conversation and passion for the world Colleen has created in her books and the characters within.’

But despite her many critics, the writer has dominated bookshelves for years. 

It Ends With Us is the most popular of Colleen’s works, but she has had multiple successes which have racked in sales. 

Her devoted fanbase has also given her a degree of control over her work that is unusual in publishing. 

Although she built a strong fanbase early in her career, her sales soared during the pandemic, when her books became a sensation on TikTok.

Libby McGuire, head of Colleen’s main publisher, called the phenomenon ‘the reverse of the Oprah book club’. 

Whereas Oprah Winfrey was one woman making a recommendation, and sometimes selling two million books, now it’s 100 people making a recommendation ‒ and selling four million books, McGuire says. ‘We’re all just sitting back going, ‘OK, what’s the next one they’re going to pick?’

PIRATE E-LIBRARY SCANDAL 

In one of the more bizarre scandals Colleen has been embroiled in, the author is often accused of being behind the take down of a pirate e-library that thousands of college students relied on to access expensive textbooks.

As reported by Daily Dot, Z-Library gained notoriety for making resources more available outside of financial constraints, but was ultimately not appreciated by authors due to ‘ebook piracy’.

When it got taken down in 2022 however, many on social media alleged that a ‘Colleen Hoover fan’ was behind authorities cracking down on the site, with rumours spreading that a devoted follower of the author was behind a complaints.

However, this has never been legitimately proven, and many dismiss the claim, seemingly pointing to the multiple tutorials BookTokers themselves made on accessing the library.

Cyber-authorities are understood to still be embroiled in a battle to unveil all of the pirate site’s domains.

Despite the issue being larger than Colleen’s novels, her name has become synonymous with the downfall of Z-Library on social media.

TikToker Kathaleen Mallard in 2022 jokingly said: ‘How am I supposed to pay for college now’ after uploading a video captioned ‘Me when the CoHo fans shut down Z-Library’.

Elsewhere user billybxtcher, that same year, shared: ‘Pov you’re a college student just finidng out zlibrary got permanently shut down because of a Colleen Hoover fan.’

An X post from this year read: ‘It was a Colleen Hoover reader that exposed z-library and I will never get over that’ while another grieved it as ‘the greatest tragedy in the history of the internet’.

LEGAL CAMPAIGN

Following on from previous suspicions of a feud, Blake Lively is now suing her former ‘It Ends With Us’ co-star and director Justin Baldoni over allegations of sexual harassment.

The Gossip Girl star claims Baldoni fostered a toxic workplace environment, which included the director showing her nude videos and images of other women and discussing his previous alleged porn addiction.

‘I hope that my legal action helps pull back the curtain on these sinister retaliatory tactics to harm people who speak up about misconduct and helps protect others who may be targeted,’ Lively said.

Baldoni’s team has refuted the allegations and claim the legal action is an attempt to patch up Lively’s reputation, which suffered in the wake of the beleaguered movie’s release.

Lively claimed Baldoni made inappropriate inquiries about her weight, comments about her dead father and sexual remarks about the cast and crew.

The situation became so unworkable that she and husband Ryan Reynolds demanded crisis talks during filming to put a stop to the behavior, according to the lawsuit.

Lively also requested: ‘No more adding of sex scenes, oral sex or on camera climaxing by BL [Blake Lively] outside the scope of the script BL approved when signing onto the project,’ per the filings.

The demands were allegedly accepted by the studio, but the movie’s release was still hampered by a dispute between Lively and Baldoni about how it should be marketed, according to the lawsuit. 

Lively claims that Baldoni’s team then engaged in a ‘social manipulation’ campaign to tarnish her reputation.

The lawsuit includes text messages from the director’s publicist to the studio which allegedly say Baldoni, ‘wants to feel like [Lively] can be buried, and ‘We can’t write we will destroy her’.

Baldoni’s lawyer Bryan Freedman hit back at the lawsuit as, ‘false, outrageous and intentionally salacious with an intent to publicly hurt’.

He insisted the legal action is an attempt by Lively to ‘fix her negative reputation’ after rumors emerged of diva-like behavior on set.

This included, ‘threatening to not showing up to set, threatening to not promote the film, ultimately leading to its demise during release,’ according to Freedman.