“I was shocked that the New York Times insinuated that I had been working for Baldoni’s team. It made me sick to my stomach to read that,” Flaa told Variety. “I contacted the New York Times and asked them how they could print such a wild conspiracy theory, and they did add an update to the story yesterday. I still believe that it was terrible that the journalists never contacted me to confirm or deny such serious claims.”
The New York Times didn’t immediately respond to Variety’s request for comment but updated its article with Flaa’s response after publication.
During the “It Ends With Us” press tour, rumors were rampant that Lively and Baldoni didn’t get along as the film’s two leads didn’t do any press together and online sleuths discovered that most of the cast had unfollowed Baldoni on Instagram. Lively faced criticism in the lead-up to the film’s release for downplaying the domestic violence storyline and using the media coverage to promote her new haircare line. In the film, based on Colleen Hoover’s best-selling novel, Lively plays a florist who finds herself in an abusive relationship with a charming surgeon (Baldoni). “It Ends With Us” became a huge box office hit for Sony, earning $350 million at the worldwide box office against a $25 million budget. Despite the commercial success, a source told Variety that a sequel was unlikely to take place because “there’s probably no world where these two will work together again.”
Flaa told Variety she has no regrets about recirculating the prior conversation with Lively, in which she says the actor was “very dismissive of me and ignored me during most of my interview. People in the comment section described it as ‘mean girl’ behavior.”
