(L-R) Justin Baldoni, Blake Lively. Photo:

Stephen Lovekin/Shutterstock; Jeff Kravitz/FilmMagic

• Justin Baldoni and Blake Lively are in an ongoing legal battle after the actress sued the actor/director, accusing him of sexual harassment and a retaliatory public smear campaign to “destroy” her reputation
• The accusations came months after the release of their film It Ends with Us, and Baldoni responded by countersuing the actress
• Although he did not discuss Lively in his newly-released podcast appearance, he chronicled his “intense” year

Before being sued by Blake Lively, Justin Baldoni was already having an “intense” year.

Baldoni made the revelation in an episode of the Gent’s Talk Podcast released on Monday, Feb. 10. The installment was filmed in November 2024 — a month before Lively, 37, filed a lawsuit against her It Ends with Us costar and director, 41, accusing him of sexual harassment, followed by a retaliatory public smear campaign to “destroy” her reputation.

“This morning, I sent a text message to my best friend Jamey and the president of my company, Tera, and I told them that I wasn’t in the best place,” Baldoni said on the podcast. “I told them that I was exhausted, that I haven’t given myself time to recover or time to heal.”

Jamey Heath is the CEO of Wayfarer Studios and Tera Hanks is president of the production company.

Baldoni, who also directed It Ends with Us, said his emotions were the result of “an intense year.”

Justin Baldoni attends Variety Faith And Spirituality In Entertainment Honors presented by CFAM at Four Seasons Hotel Los Angeles at Beverly Hills on December 04, 2024.  Araya Doheny/Variety via Getty

“A lot of material success and a lot of emotional stress was very hard on me and my family. I wear a lot of hats, and I carry a lot because I love what I do,” he said, noting that he has “love” for his company.

“I love the people that work for us. I love the movies that we make. I love the impact that we have and yet sometimes it’s easy to, as you said earlier, fall back into our programming and be swept away in the current of self and be kind of overtaken by the wave of success and opportunity,” Baldoni said.

He explained that after waking up at 4:30 in the morning with his “heart racing,” he realized that he was dealing with “some anxiety” and “not in the best place.”

After checking in with himself, Baldoni said he was reminded that he needed to prioritize his time and “just haven’t given myself the time to heal from this year that I needed.”

He said that “in the spirit of vulnerability,” he shared the same message with his assistant and a similar text message with his publicist, Jennifer Abel.

The actor shared that he is a “work in progress,” who is “always trying to be radically sincere and authentic to myself” to “have the most impact.”

“And sometimes I can get lost in the same way that everybody gets lost, but healing isn’t linear, and growth isn’t linear, and if you don’t have setbacks and if you don’t have plateaus, then you don’t have the opportunity to group and to push forward,” said Baldoni.

Blake Lively. SplashNews.com

The podcast’s release comes amid Baldoni’s ongoing legal battle with Lively.

On December 21, Lively named Wayfarer, Baldoni, Heath, Abel and others in her lawsuit.

On December 31, Baldoni sued The New York Times for $250 million, alleging libel, false light invasion of privacy, promissory fraud and breach of implied-in-fact contract, after the outlet published a story titled “We Can Bury Anyone’: Inside a Hollywood Smear Machine” about the allegations against him.

A month later, Baldoni filed another lawsuit suing Lively, her husband, Ryan Reynolds, their publicist Leslie Sloane and Sloane’s PR firm Vision PR, Inc. for $400 million, on claims of civil extortion and defamation, among other claims.

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Baldoni and Lively are scheduled for trial on March 9, 2026.