‘It felt phony’: Justin Baldoni’s ‘toxic’ positivity slammed amid Blake Lively feud
There’s been another shot fired at Justin Baldoni amid his ongoing feud and lawsuit with actress Blake Lively, following his alleged sexual harassment and alleged smearing of her name on the set of their movie It Ends With Us. The issue? A new report claims he’s too nice—emphasis on the “too” part.
According to a Los Angeles Times profile, his politeness comes off as insincere, with one of his former employees calling it toxic. Baldoni owns a production company called Wayfarer Studios, which produced It Ends With Us. He also directed and starred in it. Wayfarer is also cited in the lawsuit.
“It was constant positivity all the time—I would say toxic positivity,” the former Wayfarer employee revealed. “I’m always a little dubious of people who advertise themselves as disruptors of the status quo or quote-unquote ‘good people.’ It felt phony.”
Toxic positivity may not necessarily seem as harmful as toxic negativity, but who’s to say? It all depends on how it’s wielded. Baldoni’s former personal and executive assistant Melissa Ames did not share that employee’s experience. She said Baldoni has “a heart for helping others” and that working at Wayfarer was “one of the best times of my life.” A spokesperson for Baldoni and Wayfarer responded similarly, stating, “There have never been any reported complaints regarding the workplace culture, or any communicated issues regarding the platforms of its founders.”
Baldoni was also called out for being too open about his religious beliefs, specifically the Bahá’í Faith. Bahá’í is a religion that emphasizes humankind’s spiritual unity and promotes peace and justice. It was founded in the mid-19th century, and an estimated 5 to 8 million people follow the faith around the world today.
One former employee said there was an “evangelizing aspect” to how Baldoni spoke about religion that felt “professionally inappropriate.” Another employee said the whole faith thing didn’t bother them as much, but that it was “a driving force behind everything they did.”
It didn’t help that Chicago billionaire Steve Sarowitz, who owned a stake in Wayfarer, wanted to chat about it “all the time,” the staffer said.
The Wayfarer spokesperson said that no Bahá’í-related activities were ever mandated at the company, and all of Wayfarer’s projects “are rooted in a belief system that stems from various faiths and backgrounds,” and “spirituality is commonplace.”
The lawsuit is shocking and newsworthy, not just because of the harrowing allegations against Baldoni but because the actor built his brand around being a good person and improving yourself. For instance, in 2014, he created the Skid Row Carnival of Love event to benefit the unhoused. In 2021, he wrote a book called Man Enough: Undefining My Masculinity and started a podcast with the same name that attempts to deconstruct the prevalent issue of toxic masculinity and how it harms men’s wellbeing.
Overt positivity doesn’t sound bad on the surface, but when someone uses it to hide their true nature, it morphs into something harmful.
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