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Justin Baldoni
American actor and director (born 1984) From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Justin Louis Baldoni (born January 24, 1984[1]) is an American actor and director. He is best known for playing Rafael Solano on the CW telenovela Jane the Virgin (2014–2019) and for starring in and directing the romantic drama film It Ends with Us (2024). He has also directed Five Feet Apart (2019) and Clouds (2020).
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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.
Baldoni directed and starred opposite Blake Lively in It Ends with Us, a box-office success, but drew controversy, resulting in a number of lawsuits, including Lively and Baldoni suing each other for defamation.
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Early life
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Baldoni was born in Los Angeles, California, and was raised in Medford, Oregon, to parents Sharon (née Solomon) and Sam Baldoni.[2][3] His mother is Jewish, born to Ashkenazi Jewish parents Blanche Katz and Daniel Solomon from Cleveland, Ohio, with roots in Central and Eastern Europe.[4][3] Baldoni is therefore considered Jewish according to Halakha (Jewish law), as Orthodox Judaism practices matrilineal descent.[5] His maternal grandfather served in the Second World War and Baldoni lost relatives in the Holocaust.[5] His father Sam is from an Italian Catholic background.[6] His paternal grandfather is Louis Baldoni, a former Indiana state senator and Italian immigrant.[7] Baldoni was raised celebrating both Christmas and Hanukkah in honour of his Jewish and Catholic grandparents.[5][6] However, he was raised Baháʼí, practicing the Baháʼí Faith, the faith which both his parents had converted to before he was born.[5][6] Baldoni has visited Israel several times on Baháʼí pilgrimages.[6]
Baldoni played soccer and ran track in 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.[8] He attended college at California State University, Long Beach on a partial athletic scholarship, but later dropped out.[9] 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."[10]
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Career
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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.[11] In 2012, Baldoni created a digital documentary series, My Last Days, a show about living—as told by the dying.[12][13] The show eventually became one of the most-watched YouTube documentary series streamed online.[14] 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.[15] 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.[16]
From 2014 to 2019, Baldoni played Rafael Solano in the CW satirical telenovela Jane the Virgin starring opposite Gina Rodriguez.[17] In May 2016 he launched a time-lapse video app for pregnant women and new moms called Belly Bump.[18] 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.[19] The film was a financial success but received mixed reviews.[20][21] The following year he directed and produced Clouds, a film depicting the life of musician Zach Sobiech with Warner Bros.[22][23] 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.[24]
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.[25] 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.[26][27] Eventually Baldoni and Lively had a combative working relationship on the set, with Lively accusing him of sexually harassing her and creating a toxic workplace environment.[28] Pulitzer Prize award-winning journalists Megan Twohey and Mike McIntire from The New York Times investigated the allegations and reported that Baldoni had hired a PR crisis firm in order to "bury her" through a coordinated smear campaign against her across social media platforms such as TikTok, Reddit, and X.[29] Baldoni responded with a $250 million defamation lawsuit against the newspaper, saying that the article's authors had pulled quotes so far out of context as to be the opposite of the truth.[28] Baldoni's attorney, Bryan Freedman, released what he said were the full, unedited version of emails, texts and other information in order to demonstrate Baldoni's accusation against the Times.[30]
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Other ventures
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Man Enough projects
In July 2017, Variety announced that Baldoni was developing a talk show through his media company Wayfarer Entertainment. The show, entitled Man Enough, is described as a disruptive panel series that explores what it means to be a man today.[31] Eight 25-minute episodes were to be distributed on the internet.[32] In 2021, Baldoni released a book under the same premise.[33]
He began a podcast series under the same name with co-hosts Liz Plank and Jamey Heath. A children's version of the book Boys Will Be Human was released in October 2022.[34] Plank left the podcast in 2024 after The New York Times reported allegations that Baldoni sexually harassed Blake Lively. Plank wrote in a statement, "I will continue to support everyone who calls out injustice and holds the people standing in their way accountable".[35]
Wayfarer Studios
Baldoni co-founded a production company called Wayfarer Entertainment that produces television, films, and digital content. In 2019, Wayfarer sold a majority stake in the company to investment fund 4S Bay Partners, setting up a $25 million content fund,[36][37] and was renamed Wayfarer Studios in 2020.[38] The studio's most successful project to date is the 2024 romance drama It Ends with Us, that Baldoni directs and stars in. The film has grossed $391 million at the box office.[39] The studio has also partnered with the nonprofit No More to provide resources and information related to domestic abuse and violence such as that shown in the film.[40] No More dedicates itself is to ending domestic and sexual violence. They work to increase awareness, inspire action, and fuel culture change with a view to eradicating domestic violence. It is a global initiative that comprises “the largest coalition of non-profits, corporations, government agencies, media, schools, and individuals addressing domestic and sexual violence”. They say they are “committed to engaging, reaching, and working with people from diverse communities”.[41]
In 2014, Baldoni through Wayfarer Studios's philanthropic branch, Wayfarer Foundation started the annual Skid Row Carnival of Love in downtown Los Angeles.[42][43] The event served between 4 and 5 thousand homeless individuals living around Skid Row providing career services such as "housing services, domestic violence services, dental and medical exams, an eye clinic, haircuts, and massages" and other festivities such as face-painting, live concerts, and children's activities.[42]
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Personal life
After almost two years of dating, Baldoni married Swedish actress Emily Foxler, now known as Emily Baldoni.[44] He proposed to her in a 27-minute video which he released on his production company's YouTube channel where it went viral. He described it as "his first movie".[45][46][47] The couple married in July 2013 in Corona, California.[48] Together they have a daughter and a son.[49][50]
Baldoni is a member of the Baháʼí Faith and has stated that for him it's a "daily source of inner happiness".[51] He has stated that he has ADHD.[52][53] He has previously written and spoken about his struggles with Body dysmorphic disorder (BDD).[54][55] Baldoni is on the Board of Ambassadors of the Tahirih Justice Center, a nonprofit advocating for women, girls, and all immigrant survivors of gender-based violence.[56]
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It Ends with Us controversies
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Baldoni directed and starred opposite Blake Lively in It Ends with Us (2024), a box-office success. Its contentious filming received substantial media coverage, as both Lively and Baldoni filed lawsuits related to the production.[57] In December 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 Lively and her husband Ryan Reynolds for $400 million, alleging that the Hollywood power couple and their publicist, Leslie Sloan, sought to "destroy" him.[57] He also sued The New York Times for libel over their investigation and reporting of the allegations Lively made in the California Civil Rights Department (CRD) complaint she submitted. [57]
On December 20, 2024, Lively filed a complaint with the California Civil Rights Department (CRD) against Baldoni for sexual harassment and intimidation on the set of It Ends with Us (2024).[57][58][59] The New York Times ran a corresponding story accusing Baldoni and producer Jamey Heath of hiring crisis management experts to "destroy" Lively's reputation through social media campaigns and strategic media placement.[29] Baldoni has denied the accusations, and his lawyer, Bryan Freedman, produced a statement describing Lively's claims as "completely false, outrageous and intentionally salacious."[60]
On December 21, 2024, the talent agency WME dropped Baldoni as a client.[59][61][62] Colleen Hoover, the author of the novel on which the film is based, released a personal statement supporting Lively.[63] Baldoni, who had recently received the Voices of Solidarity Award, had it rescinded by its sponsor, Vital Voices.[64] Baldoni's Man Enough co-host Liz Plank resigned from their podcast.[65] Sony Pictures released a statement standing by Lively, adding, "[W]e strongly condemn any reputational attacks on her. Any such attacks have no place in our business or in a civil society."[66]
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 allegedly ignoring evidence disputing her claims.[58][67] 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."[67]
The New York Times has defended itself, saying, "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."[68]
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.[69]
On 16 January 2025, Baldoni's attorney filed a $400 million lawsuit against Blake Lively, her husband Ryan Reynolds, and their publicist Leslie Sloan for civil extortion, defamation, and invasion of privacy.[58][62] 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.[62] Baldoni denies any sexual harassment took place and said that the smear campaign alleged by Lively did not exist.[62] On January 31, Baldoni filed a 168-page timeline of events, including text messages, to support the assertion that Lively had conducted a smear campaign against him.[70][71]
Baldoni contends that Lively, along with Reynolds and Sloan, engaged in a coordinated effort to tarnish his reputation, derail his career, and obscure the film’s original purpose of highlighting domestic violence awareness.[72]
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Filmography
Film
Television
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Bibliography
- Man Enough: Undefining My Masculinity (HarperOne, 2021)
- Boys Will Be Human: A Get-Real Gut-Check Guide to Becoming the Strongest, Kindest, Bravest Person You Can Be (Harper Collins, 2022)
Notes
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External links
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