Justin Baldoni


Justin Louis Baldoni is an American actor and director. He is best known for playing Rafael Solano on the CW telenovela Jane the Virgin and for starring in and directing the romantic drama film It Ends with Us. He has also directed Five Feet Apart and Clouds.
Baldoni co-founded the production company Wayfarer Studios in 2019. Through his company he has produced and co-hosted the Man Enough podcast. He has also published two books on exploring positive masculinity and overcoming societal expectations of being a man. He is also currently involved in litigation after Blake Lively, who co-starred with him in It Ends with Us, accused him of sexual harassment.

Early life

Baldoni was born in Los Angeles, California, and was raised in Medford, Oregon, to parents Sharon and Samuel Baldoni. His mother is Jewish, born to Ashkenazi Jewish parents Blanche Katz and Daniel Solomon from Cleveland, Ohio, with roots in Central and Eastern Europe. Baldoni is therefore considered Jewish according to Halakha, as Orthodox Judaism practices matrilineal descent. His maternal grandfather served in the Second World War and Baldoni lost relatives in the Holocaust. His father Sam is from an Italian Catholic background. His paternal grandfather is Louis Baldoni, a former Indiana state senator and Italian immigrant. Baldoni was raised celebrating both Christmas and Hanukkah in honor of his Jewish and Catholic grandparents. However, he was raised Baháʼí, practicing the Baháʼí Faith, the faith which both his parents had converted to before he was born. Baldoni has visited Israel several times on Baháʼí pilgrimages.
Baldoni played soccer and ran track while a student at South Medford High School, and was a radio disc jockey at a local top 40 radio station. While moving into a new apartment building, Baldoni met a manager who advised him to pursue a career in acting. He attended college at California State University, Long Beach on a partial athletic scholarship, but later dropped out. In December 2024, Baldoni alleged he had "experienced sexual trauma" in a previous relationship when he was attending university. He said that he "wrestled with that trauma for the rest of my life, because in my head a man can't experience sexual trauma at the hands of a woman."

Career

2004–2018: Early roles and ''Jane the Virgin''

Baldoni made his acting debut in the soap opera The Young and the Restless in 2004. In 2008, Baldoni wrote, produced, and directed his first music video that was selected and won him his first "Audience Choice Award" at Dawn Breakers International Film Festival. In 2012, Baldoni created a digital documentary series, My Last Days, a show about living—as told by the dying. The show eventually became one of the most-watched YouTube documentary series streamed online. The second season of My Last Days aired on CW and third season was released in the winter of 2018. On the heels of that success Baldoni founded Wayfarer Entertainment, a digital media studio focused on disruptive inspiration. In December 2018, Baldoni spoke at the annual End Well Symposium about why he believes that thinking about our death can help us live better.
From 2014 to 2019, Baldoni played Rafael Solano in the CW satirical telenovela Jane the Virgin starring opposite Gina Rodriguez. In May 2016 he launched a time-lapse video app for pregnant women and new moms called Belly Bump. In 2018 he played a young Barry Minkow in the crime drama Con Man, directed by Bruce Caulk.

2019–present: Expansion to directing

Baldoni directed and produced CBS Films' Five Feet Apart, starring Cole Sprouse and Haley Lu Richardson, and based on an original script by Mikki Daughtry and Tobias Iaconis. The film was released on March 15, 2019, and chronicles the lives of two teenagers living with cystic fibrosis. The film was a financial success but received mixed reviews. The following year he directed and produced Clouds, a film depicting the life of musician Zach Sobiech with Warner Bros. On May 14, 2020, it was announced Disney+ had acquired distribution rights to the film from Warner Bros., in light of the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the film industry. It was released on October 16, 2020.
In 2024 Baldoni directed, produced, and starred in the romantic drama It Ends with Us, based on Colleen Hoover's novel of the same name. In the film, in which he acted opposite Blake Lively, Baldoni portrays a neurosurgeon who is a domestic abuser. The film became a box office hit, earning over $350 million, but it received mixed reviews from critics besides being surrounded by controversy due to the working relationship he and Lively had on and off set.
Still in 2024, he produced the romantic comedy A Nice Indian Boy, starring Jonathan Groff and Karan Soni, who play the leading couple. The film follows an Indian doctor, played by Soni, who brings his white boyfriend, played by Groff, to meet his traditional parents. Though it had a modest release and box-office turn worldwide, it was met with universal acclaim by critics. In 2025, Wayfarer Studios backed the film Eleanor the Great, directed by Scarlett Johansson and starring June Squibb, in which Baldoni served as executive producer. The movie had its world premiere at Cannes Film Festival. Additionally, 2025 also saw the release of the action-comedy Code 3, directed by Christopher Leone, which Baldoni also produced through Wayfarer.

''It Ends with Us'' controversies

Allegations of sexual harassment and complaints

Baldoni directed and starred opposite Blake Lively in It Ends with Us, a box-office success. Its filming received substantial media coverage, as both Lively and Baldoni filed lawsuits related to the production. On December 20, 2024, Lively filed a complaint with the California Civil Rights Department against Baldoni for sexual harassment and intimidation on the set of It Ends with Us. On December 31, 2024, Lively filed a lawsuit against Baldoni and his production company Wayfarer Studios, accusing them of sexual harassment and intimidation. Denying the allegations, Baldoni sued The New York Times for libel over their reporting and for "working alongside Lively’s team to publish a one-sided article that benefited Lively and contained doctored evidence". In January 2025 he also sued Lively, her husband Ryan Reynolds and their publicist, Leslie Sloane, for $400 million, alleging that the Hollywood "power couple," Sloane, and The New York Times used false allegations of sexual misconduct in an effort to "smear" and "destroy" him.

''The New York Times'' reporting

The New York Times corresponding investigative piece claimed that Baldoni and producer Jamey Heath hired crisis management experts to "destroy" Lively's reputation through social media campaigns and strategic media placement. Baldoni has denied the accusations, and his lawyer, Bryan Freedman, produced a statement describing Lively's claims as "completely false, outrageous and intentionally salacious." On December 21, 2024, the talent agency WME dropped Baldoni as a client. Colleen Hoover, the author of the novel on which the film is based, released a personal statement supporting Lively. Baldoni, who had recently received the Voices of Solidarity Award, had it rescinded by its sponsor, Vital Voices. Baldoni's Man Enough co-host Liz Plank resigned from their podcast. Sony Pictures released a statement standing by Lively, adding, "e strongly condemn any reputational attacks on her. Any such attacks have no place in our business or in a civil society."
In response to their reporting on the allegations by Lively, Justin Baldoni filed a libel lawsuit for $250 million against The New York Times for pushing an "unverified and self-serving narrative" using "cherry-picked and altered communications stripped of necessary context," and for ignoring evidence disputing her claims. The lawsuit contained excerpts of Baldoni and his associates communications that ostensibly give context to deny many of the claims in Lively's suit. Baldoni's lawyer stated, "In this vicious smear campaign fully orchestrated by Blake Lively and her team, the New York Times cowered to the wants and whims of two powerful 'untouchable' Hollywood elites, disregarding journalistic practices and ethics once befitting of the revered publication by using doctored and manipulated texts and intentionally omitting texts which dispute their chosen PR narrative."
The New York Times has defended its reporting, stating, "The role of an independent news-organization is to follow the facts where they lead. Our story was meticulously and responsibly reported. It was based on a review of thousands of pages of original documents, including the text messages and emails that we quote accurately and at length in the article." This lawsuit was dismissed when The New York Times was named as a defendant in a new lawsuit Baldoni filed against Lively and the paper.

Further lawsuits

On December 31, 2024, Lively filed a lawsuit against Baldoni, mirroring the California Civil Rights Department complaint. The lawsuit named Baldoni; his film studio, Wayfarer; and the two public relations representatives, Melissa Nathan and Jennifer Abel.
On January 16, 2025, Baldoni's attorney filed a $400 million lawsuit against Blake Lively, her husband Ryan Reynolds, and their publicist Leslie Sloane for civil extortion, defamation, and invasion of privacy. The 170-page complaint, filed in the Southern District of New York, claims that Lively attempted to hijack control of the movie with demands and threats, and despite getting most of what she wanted, decided to accuse Baldoni of a smear campaign, "to deflect attention and blame for Lively's disastrous misjudgments... Lively would recast herself as the long-suffering martyr by portraying Baldoni and Wayfarer as her persecutors," according to the complaint. Baldoni denies any sexual harassment took place and said that the smear campaign alleged by Lively did not exist. On January 31, 2025, Baldoni amended his complaint and also included a 168-page timeline of events, including text messages, to support the assertion that Lively had conducted a smear campaign against him. This timeline was also posted on a
Baldoni contends that Lively, along with Reynolds and Sloane, engaged in a coordinated effort to tarnish his reputation, derail his career, and obscure the film's original purpose of highlighting domestic violence awareness. On June 9, Judge Lewis J. Liman dismissed Baldoni's suit. While he did not evaluate any facts of the case, he found Lively's accusations of sexual harassment "legally protected" due to being part of a legal proceeding and thus immune from a lawsuit. He also wrote that The New York Times, "reviewed the available evidence and reported, perhaps in a dramatized manner, what it believed to have happened". However, Liman allowed Baldoni to "amend and refile a couple of allegations regarding interference with contracts." Lively's original complaint is currently set to go to trial March 2026.