I’m So Invested in the Blake Lively-Justin Baldoni Feud, It’s Freaking Me Out. So I Brought in a Therapist.

It started with murmurings during the It Ends with Us press tour. The stars, Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni, were never seen promoting the film together. Strange, since Baldoni directed the screen adaptation of Colleen Hoover’s best-selling novel of the same name. If you, like me, followed along as the drama unfolded, we would eventually learn that where there was smoke, there was fire. And for months, since Lively’s December 2024 filing against Baldoni for harassment, the toxic energy that allegedly saturated the It Ends with Us set, poured over into the public arena in every publication, headline and Reddit thread. 

I personally could not read up enough on the drama, keeping my eye on the ball as it volleyed back and forth between A-list PR teams. The counter-suing of Ryan Reynolds, Lively’s husband. The one-two punch of the outpouring of support from Lively’s Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants crew and the Taylor Swift subpoena. There was—and is!—so much celebrity muck to rake through. The trial’s slated for March 2026, and I’m hoping Ryan Murphy is considering a dramatic retelling. 

And while I garble up the tabloids, I’m simultaneously completely mortified by my creepy parasocial inklings. What’s my stake? Am I reveling in the schadenfreude of beautiful happy rich people? How base. I’m a mom. I volunteer. I’ve never actually read a Colleen Hoover novel. Shouldn’t I be beyond the spin doctors and celeb media frenzy? Curious as to why exactly I keep refreshing this particular tab, I asked a therapist for some insight. 

Gayane Aramyan, LMFT, is a Los Angeles-based therapist. In the field for over ten years, Aramyan began her work under Anita Avedian, LMFT as a certified anger management facilitator. Aramyan’s work is driven to support women and parents through all seasons of life, including anger management, grief, acceptance and commitment therapy and more. 

It’s not so much about gossip as it is about projection.

Beyond the entertainment factor, I want to understand what fundamental human desire or anxiety the Blake and Justin feud fuels for me. Is it a need for justice, drama or something else entirely? I've never been a fan of either celebrity—I’m neutral to all parties, I tell Aramyan. I never even saw the film or read a Colleen Hoover book. Why do I care?! 

Aramyan replied thoughtfully, explaining to me that public narratives tap into core human themes like identity, betrayal, longing and hope for emotional safety: “They often stir up our own unresolved relational wounds (e.g. abandonment, trust or loyalty) and let us, in a way, explore those things from a safe distance.” When we concern ourselves with celebrity drama, we get to ask ourselves what we might tolerate or who we would side with. “It’s not so much about gossip as it is about projection. We see parts of ourselves, our exes, our parents, our partners in these stories. And so watching it all unfold in the public eye can actually help us process things we may not have fully processed before.”

Even if I tell myself I just like soaking up the hot tea of it all, there’s the psychological process of projection at play. Our world may be far from Hollywood movie sets and press tours, but our brains still latch onto the scaffolding: “Taking sides is just aligning with the person who feels most familiar to us—sometimes consciously, but often through the lens of our own lived experiences, core values, and unresolved pain/trauma,” says Aramyan. 

Plus, Aramyan continues, it gives us a low-stakes way to explore potentially high-stakes feelings: “We use [celebrity feuds] like emotional Rorschach tests. Bringing up Team Blake vs. Team Justin or Selena vs. Hailey at brunch is often less about the celebs and more about how we see the world. They can be conversation starters that quietly reveal our values, such as how we want to respond to conflict, what we believe about forgiveness, how we see power dynamics, our definition of loyalty, etc.”

Caring about the latest celebrity feud is usually us trying to make sense of our own experiences.

“You can learn a lot about someone by who they defend,” shares Amarayn. “And because it's all happening in the world of the rich and famous, it allows us to debate these topics without ever saying ‘oh, this hits really close to home for me because of X’ or ‘this reminds me of the time when…’ Caring about the latest celebrity feud is usually us trying to make sense of our own experiences.”

During all of this Hollywood ado, I was grossed out by how fans seemed to be foaming at the mouth during the Taylor Swift of it all. For those not totally familiar with the events, basically Baldoni’s legal team subpoenaed Swift, dragging her into the mess and allegedly leading Swift to “drop” Blake as a bestie. Amaryan isn’t fazed by this in the slightest: “Because we love to think about our own morality. Taylor is such a big celebrity that she often plays the moral compass. Watching who she stands by (or doesn’t) almost feels like getting a verdict. Will justice be served?!”

Celebrity stories act like emotional reference points, Amaryan elaborates. It’s like how we use literature. A book report isn’t just a summary of the novel, it argues something larger about themes while working double duty as a reflecting pool for our own views and morals. 

It is human nature to project and run imagined morality exercises in our brains. It’s nothing new exactly, we just have so much more access to the drama. Am I morally reprehensible for wanting to pull up a seat with a bag of popcorn? Questionable. Maybe I’ll bring the subject up at my next dinner party and see where everybody lands.