Justin Baldoni and Britney Spears Getty Images (2)
Justin Baldoni’s experience meeting Britney Spears on set is being examined thanks to a resurfaced clip.
During a January 2017 interview with Fuse, Baldoni, 40, recalled an awkward moment when he interacted with the pop superstar while she was guest starring on Jane the Virgin.
“I know she was a fan of the show,” he recalled. “We were shooting and then a few of us that weren’t in scenes with her came to watch one of her scenes. Because I had tweeted her and she had tweeted me back, I’d gone up to her [too], so in my mind we were friends, but we weren’t. I went up and I gave her a big hug and I think I scared her.”
After the moment, Baldoni saw his costars laughing, leaving the actor wondering: “Did I just harass Britney Spears?”
“I was a huge Britney Spears fan in high school. What adolescent boy wasn’t?” he asked. “The guest star I was most excited to work with was Britney Spears. And then it turned out, I didn’t get to work with her. And there was zero scenes with Rafael and Britney Spears — probably at her request.”
Baldoni played Rafael Solano in Jane the Virgin for nearly 100 episodes between 2014 and 2019. During season 2, the show welcomed Spears, 43, as a guest star where she played herself.
“I had tweeted her. I was going to bring a poster from her Live [From] Las Vegas tour to set and I didn’t do that because I don’t have one,” Baldoni recalled. “I was joking. But I think she thought I was serious.”
Us Weekly has reached out to Baldoni’s team for comment on the video.
Justin Baldoni Bryan Bedder/Getty Images for Vital Voices Global Partnership
The resurfaced clip comes as Baldoni finds himself in a legal battle with his It Ends With Us costar Blake Lively.
In December 2024, Lively, 37, sued Baldoni for sexual harassment. The lawsuit alleges that there was a meeting conducted to address Lively’s claims that there was a “hostile work environment” on set. She also accused the actor of launching a “social manipulation” campaign against her to “destroy” her reputation.
Baldoni’s lawyer, Bryan Freedman, called Lively’s accusations “completely false, outrageous and intentionally salacious” in a statement to Us, claiming that Lively filed the lawsuit to “fix her negative reputation” and “rehash a narrative” about the movie’s production.
Baldoni hit back days later with his own lawsuit, where he was listed as one of the 10 plaintiffs suing The New York Times for $250 million after its reporting on Lively’s legal filing. Baldoni’s lawsuit alleged that Lively pursued a “strategic and manipulative” smear campaign against him and “cherry picked” communications while leaving out key details.
A spokesperson for The New York Times said that the publication is standing by the story and plans to “vigorously defend against the lawsuit.”
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