If you haven’t already heard of the BookTok-famous Colleen Hoover novel It Ends With Us, you’re about to.
The bestselling book has been adapted to the big screen in a movie starring Blake Lively as the main character Lily; she appears alongside Justin Baldoni as Ryle.
The movie was released four days ago amidst allegations of cast drama between actor/director Justin and the rest of the cast members, though this hasn’t been confirmed yet.
You know what’s weirder than the alleged beef, though? There are an awful, awful lot of references to Ellen DeGeneres in the film ― and only diehard fans know why.
Sorry, what?
No, you actually did read that right.
The movie’s main character, Lily, revisits her teen years through diary entries. So far, so P.S. I Love You ― except that the entries are all addressed to Ellen DeGeneres.
You can see “Dear Ellen” at the top of one of the pages in the film.
Lily also watches Ellen DeGeneres’s show in the movie, which doesn’t seem to have any other pop culture references.
If you haven’t read the books, that’s unusual.
But in the second novel, the protagonist gives her middle child the name of “Dory” (yes, after the Finding Nemo fish Ellen voiced) ― perhaps that’s why a huge Finding Nemo poster appears in the film version.
Book Lily tells Ellen when she loses her virginity. She raves about Ellen to a character called Atlas. She writes recommendations for Ellen’s show, Ellen, in her “Dear Ellen” diary entries, and complains about reruns (of, you know. Ellen).
“How come no one informed me Ellen would be referenced 252 times in It Ends With Us? I can’t read this shit!!!” a, well, not-quite-fan wrote of the book on X in 2021.
In other words, the on-screen version is comparatively Ellen-free.
People have... thoughts
“Seriously cannot believe all this It Ends With Is cast drama is over a book where the author uses letters written to Ellen Degeneres as a way to info dump,” one X user opined.
“As someone who very much disliked It Ends With Us, having gone into it thinking it was a romcom book but somehow found myself reading diary entries to Ellen with the exact opposite energy of a romcom, this is all great news,” another X user wrote.