Jenny Slate’s private description of working on the film adaptation of It Ends With Us has now spilled into public view, and her words are blistering. In newly unsealed deposition texts, the actor calls the shoot “really gross and disturbing” and paints a picture of a set culture she believed was hostile, chaotic, and dismissive of her concerns. The messages, which surfaced through ongoing legal wrangling around the production, sharpen the spotlight already trained on a movie that arrived carrying both a built-in fanbase and a growing cloud of controversy.
The film version of Colleen Hoover’s bestselling novel was sold as a prestige romantic drama, fronted by Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni, and backed by a major studio. Slate’s account, however, suggests that behind the polished marketing and red-carpet smiles, the experience of making It Ends With Us felt, to her, like a case study in how power, ego, and workplace protections can collide on a modern Hollywood set.
The “gross and disturbing” shoot behind a buzzy adaptation
From the outside, It Ends With Us looked like a sure thing, a high-profile adaptation of a blockbuster book, with Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni leading a cast that also included Jenny Slate. The project, often shortened by fans to It Ends, was positioned as a glossy American studio film with a built-in audience and a marketing hook around its sensitive subject matter. Yet as the cameras rolled, Slate, who played the sister of Baldoni’s character, was privately telling her team that the production felt toxic, describing the shoot as “a really gross and disturbing” experience and stressing that she was “one of the many who feel this way,” according to texts later cited in court documents and reported in detail on Blake.
Those messages, unsealed as part of litigation tied to the film, show Slate venting about what she saw as a pattern of bad behavior and poor leadership. In one exchange, she characterizes Baldoni as “the biggest clown” and “the most intense narcissist,” language that surfaced in coverage of her deposition and was echoed in reports that framed her comments as “damning” toward the actor and producer. Accounts of the texts note that she repeatedly emphasized how unsettled she felt by the environment, with one outlet highlighting her description of the shoot as “really gross and disturbing” and another underscoring her view that the problems were not isolated to her alone but shared by “many” colleagues on set, as reflected in detailed write-ups on Jenny Slate and Ends With Us.
Allegations of narcissism, false allyship, and ignored complaints
Slate’s texts do more than register discomfort; they sketch a portrait of Justin Baldoni that is unusually blunt for intra-industry disputes. In messages that later surfaced in court filings, she calls him an “intense narcissist” and a “false ally,” accusing him of presenting himself as supportive while, in her view, prioritizing his own image and control. One report on the unsealed material notes that she branded him “the most intense narcissist” and “the biggest clown,” language that has now been widely quoted and that appears in coverage of the Unsealed Texts. Another outlet, summarizing the same tranche of messages, reported that she railed against Baldoni as a “false ally” during the It Ends With Us shoot, a characterization that has since become shorthand for her broader critique of his conduct, as detailed in coverage of Jenny Slate and Justin Baldoni.
Her criticism did not stop at personality clashes. Slate has said that both she and Blake Lively raised concerns directly with Sony, the studio behind the film, suggesting that the issues she perceived were escalated beyond private grumbling and into formal channels. One account of her deposition notes that she alleged she and Lively took their worries to executives at Sony, while another report on her “damning” comments describes her frustration with what she saw as a lack of meaningful response from key decision makers, including figures like studio executive Jamey Heath, as referenced in coverage of New. In separate reporting on her earlier legal complaint, Slate was described as having formally challenged aspects of the production, including how motherhood and decision-making on set were handled, a dispute detailed in documents summarized by Jon Blistein. Although that complaint was ultimately dismissed, the newly unsealed texts suggest that her misgivings about the production’s culture never really faded, even as she continued to promote the film in public.
A controversy that stretches beyond one actor and one set
Slate’s deposition lands in the middle of a broader storm around It Ends With Us, which has been dogged by criticism from the moment cameras started rolling. The film’s production and rollout have already generated a dedicated Ends with Us page that catalogues disputes over creative choices, marketing, and legal battles, including a high-profile lawsuit requesting $250 million in compensation. Within that context, Slate’s texts read less like an isolated outburst and more like another data point in a pattern of friction around the project, which has involved multiple American actors, including Blake Lively, and a fanbase that has watched the adaptation process with unusual intensity.
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