Justin Baldoni is breaking his silence amid his ugly legal battle with Blake Lively, saying in a teary-eyed promo clip for a soon-to-be-aired interview he’s had an “intense year.”

Baldoni sat down with Samir Mourani — host of the “Gent’s Talk” podcast — for an emotional face-to-face, recorded a month prior to Lively’s first court filing accusing the “It Ends With Us” actor-director of sexual harassment and publicly smearing her name. As you know, Lively starred with Baldoni in the film.

In the short interview clip with quick jump cuts, Baldoni tells Mourani, “I had an intense year” and “This morning I sent a text message … I had anxiety.”

In December 2024, Lively filed a civil rights complaint followed by a lawsuit against Baldoni for his alleged sexual harassment and smear campaign against her.

Baldoni then filed his own lawsuits — including against the New York Times for allegedly colluding with Lively and defaming him in an article. He also sued Blake and her husband, Ryan Reynolds, accusing them of launching their own smear campaign against him.

Bill Maher went on a rant Friday night that started with watching football, but boy … that turns out to be a metaphor for something way bigger!

This is one of the best editorials the “Real Time” host has delivered in a long time. B.M.’s pissed off at streamers who are carrying football games. It’s true … now, instead of simply hitting a button on the remote to go back and forth between games, now it’s a giant pain in the ass. Plus, we still have to watch commercials, so exactly what’s the advantage?

Bill says it’s an example of what he calls R.I. — Reverse Improvement. It’s like when you go to a restaurant and leave your car with the valet. It used to be so easy, hand him the ticket, pay cash and get your whip.  Now … well, you know.

Ashanti has broken her silence on the death of Irv Gotti … and her heartfelt message made it clear she cared for him deeply … but it certainly wasn’t always great between the duo.

In her IG message Friday night, Ashanti called the late cofounder of Murder Inc. a “musical genius” who had the “ability to push me to be my best.”

The music mega-producer — who worked with big acts like DMX, Ja Rule and Ashanti — died Wednesday in New York City. It’s currently unclear exactly how he died.

The singer wrote in part … “I can’t believe things ended like this….and it makes me so sad…We weren’t on the best terms the past few years but as I’ve always said, through our ups and downs I will forever be grateful for everything that you’ve done for me.”

Noting they “made history” and that will “remain infinite,” she added … “All the greatness and positive things that came, far outweigh the dark and negative times.”

Irv and Ashanti had a war of words a couple years ago, when he opened up — on a now legendary “Drink Champs” episode — about what he described as their “relationship.” She fired back, saying it was never that serious to her, and accused Gotti of being salty he no longer had control of her career.

The rise of Irv’s label was the subject of the 2022 BET documentary, “The Murder Inc Story” … and Ashanti felt that was also part of why they beefed, because she chose not to participate in the 3-part series.