‘Verity’ ending explained: The truth behind the manuscript

​‘Verity’ ending explained: Is the manuscript real, or was the author telling the truth?(Image Credit: Screen Grab from Youtube)

Spoiler alert: This story contains major spoilers from ‘Verity’.‘Verity’ saves its biggest question for the final moments: who was actually telling the truth?Based on Colleen Hoover’s bestselling thriller, the psychological drama stars Anne Hathaway as Verity Crawford, Dakota Johnson as struggling writer Lowen Ashleigh and Josh Hartnett as Verity’s husband, Jeremy.The story begins when Jeremy hires Lowen to finish his wife’s popular thriller series after Verity becomes paralysed and unresponsive following a car accident. While staying at the family’s New England home, Lowen discovers a disturbing manuscript that appears to be Verity’s secret autobiography.

What does Verity’s manuscript reveal?

The manuscript paints a deeply disturbing picture of Verity. According to what Lowen reads, Verity resented her children because she felt they had taken Jeremy’s attention away from her.

It also suggests that she deliberately tried to drown her twins, with Harper eventually losing her life in what had initially been described as a canoe accident.As Lowen reads on, she starts to wonder if Verity is really unable to move or speak. At the same time, her closeness with Jeremy grows, making the situation even harder for her to understand.Eventually, Lowen tells Jeremy about the manuscript and what she believes Verity did to Harper.

Furious after reading it, Jeremy confronts his wife. Verity appears to reveal that she has been pretending to be incapacitated. Jeremy then kills her and, with Lowen’s help, stages the incident as an accident.For a moment, it seems like the mystery has finally been solved.

Then Lowen Asleigh discovers Verity’s letter

Just when Lowen is ready to leave the past behind, she finds a hidden letter from Verity.The letter completely changes the story. Verity claims that the disturbing manuscript was never a confession.

Instead, she says it was fictional writing created to process her grief, which she called “antagonistic journaling.”She also claims that Jeremy discovered the manuscript before the accident and believed everything in it was true. According to Verity’s version, Jeremy drugged her and deliberately caused the crash in an attempt to kill her. She then pretended to remain incapacitated because she feared for herself and her son, Crew.Suddenly, Lowen has two completely different versions of what happened.

Was Verity telling the truth?

The movie deliberately refuses to answer that question. Some details make the manuscript seem believable, while other clues support Verity’s letter. Lowen herself ultimately concludes, “Verity was a master at manipulating the truth.”The ambiguity was also intentional from the beginning. In a September 2026 interview with Entertainment Weekly, author Colleen Hoover admitted that she wasn't certain about the truth while writing the original novel.“Writing the book, I wasn’t sure who did it,” Hoover told Entertainment Weekly. “I wasn’t sure about the truth the whole time I was writing. I didn’t even know how I was gonna end it until about two weeks before I finished writing the book. Then, I came up with the ending. So, I did kinda go back and foreshadow some things.”

What happens to Lowen Asleigh and Jeremy?

Months later, Lowen and Jeremy have moved away from the house, and Lowen is pregnant with Jeremy’s child.

But after finding the letter, she begins to wonder whether the man she loves may have manipulated her from the beginning.Instead of showing Jeremy the letter, Lowen burns it. She then chooses to continue her life with him, leaving the truth about Verity buried.And that is what makes the ending so unsettling: the audience is left with the same uncertainty as Lowen. Was Verity a killer who created a convincing cover story, or was she a victim whose final letter revealed the truth? The film leaves the answer open.