Justin Baldoni revealed he was struggling shortly after the release of “It Ends With Us,” the movie he not only directed, but also starred in alongside Blake Lively.
Baldoni, 41, admitted he “wasn’t in the best place” during a recent episode of “Gent’s Talk” podcast, and remembered sending texts to a few close people in his life, saying that he was “exhausted” after an “intense year.”
“I told them that I was exhausted, that I haven’t given myself time to recover, or time to heal,” Baldoni told host Samir Mourani. “I had an intense year, a lot of material success and a lot of emotional stress. It was very hard on me and my family, and I wear a lot of hats and I carry a lot because I love what I do.”
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Lively filed a sexual harassment suit in December against Baldoni, his Wayfarer studio and former PR reps. The same day Lively filed her suit, Baldoni filed a $250 million suit against the New York Times for a December article about the alleged smear campaign Baldoni attempted to run against his co-star.
Weeks later, Baldoni then named Lively and Reynolds in a separate $400 million lawsuit in which he accused the Hollywood power couple of attempting to hijack “It Ends With Us” and create their own narrative.
In the interview filmed in November 2024, Baldoni explained how much he loved his company and the brand he helped build.
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“I sent this text this morning and I just said, I love you both, I just need you to know I’m not in the best place,” he said. “I woke up at 4:30 this morning. My son had the flu. I’m not feeling great. My heart was racing. I’m noticing that I’m having some anxiety, and when I check in with myself, I’ve realized that I haven’t given myself the time to heal from this year that I needed, so let’s prioritize our time and let’s make sure the things we say yes to are the things that we really feel will move the needle forward and can have impact.”
Baldoni sent a similar text message “in the spirit of vulnerability” to his assistant, and also to his press representative, Jennifer Abel.
“I bring that up because you asked me what do you need to know about who I am,” Baldoni said. “Who I am is a work in progress, and who I am is someone who is always trying to be radically sincere and authentic to myself so that I can be of service in the best way possible and have the most impact. Sometimes I can get lost in the same way that everyone gets lost, but healing isn’t linear, and growth isn’t linear and if you don’t have setbacks, and you don’t have plateaus, then you don’t have the opportunity to regroup and to push forward.”
He added, “So I share that with you because, while I look like I am all of those things, and on paper I am, I am also just like everybody else in the sense that I take on more than I can chew, I over commit. I say yes to things out of fear. I people please.”
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Baldoni was adamant on dispelling the “myth” of “having it all together” and said he wasn’t just the “guy who wrote the books on masculinity, who did the Ted Talks, who seems like he’s healed and has it all together.”
“Today, sitting down here with you, before we came, I had anxiety because I’m not feeling like my full self,” he said. “Yet, I came today despite no sleep and not feeling great and all of the barriers, because of also the work that you do and the potential for the work that we can do together and what this conversation can have for the man who is sitting there who maybe is feeling the way that I am feeling today.”
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Baldoni admitted he’s “always trying to listen and understand someone who has a different point of view” to himself.
“I’m always willing to have my point of view adjusted, so I’d like to believe I have enough humility to know that I don’t know,” he said. “I might think that I know. I might say it with authority. I might give a data point, I might speak like I’m speaking now and seem right or righteous, and yet, I am really willing to have my point of view changed. I feel like an imposter all the time.”
