Justin Baldoni Spoke About His ‘Unhealthy’ Porn Addiction In Old Interview

A years-old interview with Justin Baldoni is gaining traction online in the wake of Blake Lively’s sexual harassment complaint against him.

In the complaint, reportedly filed on Friday, Lively accused Baldoni — who directed and co-starred in her 2024 film “It Ends with Us” — of creating a toxic work environment due to his “sexual comments” throughout production, which allegedly included descriptions of his genitalia and remarks about his “pornography addiction” and Lively’s weight.

Days after the complaint was filed, a 2021 episode of Sarah Grynberg’s podcast “A Life of Greatness,” in which Baldoni got candid about his addiction to porn, began to draw renewed attention.

In the episode, Grynberg said she brought up the subject because Baldoni was so “open” in his 2021 book, “Man Enough: Undefining My Masculinity,” about how he used porn to cope with difficult feelings.

“I was introduced to porn when I was 10 years old. Long before I ever, you know, could have an erection or even knew how I felt about anything,” Baldoni said about 43 minutes into the episode. “And it became — you know, like any young boy who sees boobs for the first time — it’s exciting because our culture has shielded them from us, because they’re sexualized.”

Baldoni compared Americans’ relatively puritanical views toward sex to those found in other cultures.

“You go to places like Africa and different tribes... and the breast is the breast, right? But we’ve sexualized this thing,” he said. “So of course, it becomes fascinating and interesting, and you’re like, ‘Oh my God, boobs.’ And then, you know, hormones start raging.”

The “Jane the Virgin” alum then began to discuss how confusing it was for him to be exposed to porn at such a young age, and why it became an addiction. 

“I sought refuge in it when I felt alone or when I felt abandoned, or when I felt hurt... because it was a dopamine rush,” Baldoni said. “At an early age, I trained my brain to deal with pain with the dopamine hit.”

“I found myself, over the course of my life, going back to looking at images and videos of naked women when I was feeling necessarily bad about myself,” he said. “And I knew that it was an issue for me when I would tell myself, ‘Oh, don’t, you don’t want to do that,’ and you would find yourself doing it.”

“The fact that I look at it, and I don’t feel good when I do it, tells me that there’s an issue,” he said later in the conversation. “What is the act of me craving this external thing really telling me? It’s telling me that I have unexpressed feelings in my body that need to come out.”

Baldoni also spoke about how navigating an urge to watch porn was “tricky” because he believes much of it is “very violent” toward women, and that there’s “a link between rape culture and porn culture.” 

“And because no one ever sits us down and teaches us about consent, we learn it through porn,” Baldoni said. “So what do you have? You have an entire generation of boys who think that when a girl says ‘No’ or ‘Stop’ or ‘That hurts,’ that that means that’s good.”

Lively received widespread backlash this summer over the messy promotional tour for “It Ends with Us.” During the press tour, Lively attempted to market the film as a rom-com, although the movie was about domestic violence. She also attempted to tie in promotion of her hair care line with the rollout of her film, which irked many fans. 

Lively’s complaint offers a stark contrast to Baldoni’s public image. Over the past few years, he’s built a brand for himself as a feminist who rejects toxic masculinity. In a viral TED Talk in 2017, he spoke about redefining masculinity, a subject he also explored in “Man Enough” and his 2022 book “Boys Will Be Human.”

In a 2021 interview with the “Art of Power” podcast, he was asked how he felt about critics who dismissed his calls for men to be more vulnerable as merely “performative.”

In response, Baldoni acknowledged the possibility of some people looking at him and “being like, ‘This guy’s full of shit.’”

“And I can’t say anything to convince you otherwise,” he said. “That’s on you. Your work is... wondering why that makes you feel that way. What about what I’m saying triggers you to the point where you need to then put me down? Is it to build yourself up?”

He continued: “If that’s the case... then I would argue that that’s the exact same thing we’ve been doing to each other as men from the beginning, and that’s why we’re here at this place at all.”

Need help with substance use disorder or mental health issues? In the U.S., call 800-662-HELP (4357) for the SAMHSA National Helpline.