Originally appeared on E! Online
Blake Lively isn't afraid of letting her thoughts be known.
As rumors of a feud between the "It Ends With Us" star and the film's director Justin Baldoni — who also costarred in the film — have continued to make waves online, Lively shared insight into the her experience juggling her acting and producing role in the film. And it includes standing her ground on her decision to include Lana Del Rey's "Cherry" in the movie.
"They begged me to take that song out of the movie," Lively told Hits Radio UK in a video published Aug. 10, before quickly adding, "I'm not supposed to be talking about this."
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But as for why they wanted to take the song out of the Colleen Hoover adaptation — which sees Lively's Lily Bloom navigate a complicated and abusive relationship with charming neurosurgeon Ryle (Justin) and reconnection with her teenage love Atlas (Brandon Sklenar) — the "Gossip Girl" alum admitted, "They felt like it was too charged and heavy."
"Things are still good with Ryle at that point," she explained. "So you don't want to feel that charge."
However, the tone soon shifts.
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"The moment Atlas enters," she explained, "things are charged and heavy."
"Like, there's conflict, there's pain, there's turmoil, there's tension," she continued, "because you're like, 'Oh my god, my soulmate, the one that got away in my life, this person who's haunting me and everything I do and everywhere I go is here now and we still had that connection.'"
Still, Lively was adamant about keeping the track, which features lyrics that allude to a difficult relationship and the ideas of what "real love" is.
"You can be deeply in love with this person," she added, "but this person comes in and you're like — your insides are gonna be a mess."
The 36-year-old's comments on a creative back and forth comes just days after fans online started pointing to rumors about behind-the-scenes tension between the cast, noting that Justin hadn't joined his costars in promoting the movie.
"So something DEFINITELY happened on the set of It Ends With Us," one user wrote on X, formerly Twitter, Aug. 7. "I need to get to the bottom of it."
And while others speculated that there could have been differing opinions about multiple edited versions of the film, an insider close to the situation previously told E! News, "There are often several cuts during the post-production process and it's the very nature of post-production. And everyone was in complete agreement about the final cut of the film and that it's the best version of the film."
