One of the actors in It Ends with Us has shared where he stands amid his co-stars Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni’s ongoing legal issues.
Brandon Sklenar, who plays Atlas Corrigan in the film, appeared on CBS Mornings on Monday to promote the Yellowstone spin-off 1923 when Gayle King asked him if he was “team Blake or team Justin?”
“I'm Team It Ends With Us,” he replied.
Emphasizing the important message behind the film, which focuses on domestic violence, he continued: “I just want people to remember why we made the movie in the first place and what it stands for, just keeping the focus on that. That movie meant so much to me.
“I have someone very close to me who's gone through what [Lively's character Lily is] going through for a long time and I've been on the front lines helping her navigate that space, so that movie meant a lot to me and it means a lot to her.
"It was one of the reasons that me doing that movie gave her the strength to change her life,” Sklenar said. “It's unfortunate that things get taken away from what the ethos of that thing is and it gets convoluted.”
In December, Lively sued Baldoni for sexual harassment and causing her “severe emotional distress”.
Meanwhile, Baldoni, who was subsequently dropped by his agency after the allegations emerged, denied all claims and sued Lively and Reynolds for $400m for attempting to “destroy” his reputation and career.
Lively and her husband Ryan Reynolds recently made their first public appearance since the lawsuits unfolded for Saturday Night Live’s 50th anniversary special on Sunday.
During a segment where Tina Fey and Amy Poehler took questions from celebrities in the audience, Ryan Reynolds stood up to address them. The duo greeted him enthusiastically, saying, “Ryan! How’s it going?” Reynolds quipped back, “Great! Why, what have you heard?”
Seated beside him, Lively was all smiles until Reynolds alluded to their legal troubles, prompting her to feign shock in what was clearly a scripted comedic moment. The crowd burst into laughter at the surprise twist, and moments later, Lively was back to smiling.
Last week, It Ends with Us author Colleen Hoover removed all mention of Lively and Baldoni from her Instagram page.
The writer quit the social media platform last month amid Lively’s lawsuit against Baldoni before she returned on February 12. While she still follows Lively, all photos she had shared with the actor and Baldoni have now been deleted.
In fact, all references to the It Ends with Us promotional tour, which took place in summer 2024, are gone.
Instead, Hoover is turning her attention to the next adaptation of her work – a film version of her 2018 novel Verity starring Anne Hathaway.
