A new court filing appears to shed light on the collapse of Taylor Swift’s longtime friendship with Blake Lively, as it reveals that the “Gossip Girl” alum allegedly threatened to release private text messages from Swift unless the pop star agreed to publicly back her in her bitter legal dispute with Justin Baldoni, the Daily Mail reported Wednesday.
The revelation appears in a legal letter sent by Baldoni’s lawyers to the U.S. district judge presiding over the case, the Daily Mail said. The letter was filed in response to Lively’s request to quash a subpoena issued to Swift last week, compelling her to testify about what she did or didn’t know about the feud that erupted between Lively and Baldoni while they worked together on the 2024 movie drama “It Ends With Us.”
Blake Lively and Taylor Swift arrive at Emilio’s Ballato in New York.(MEGA/GC Images/Getty Images)
The letter also alleges that Lively urged Swift to delete text messages between them, after her legal fight with Baldoni began to heat up earlier this year, the Daily Mail said.
Things between the women had begun to sour by December after Lively filed a lawsuit against Baldoni, her co-star and director for the film, the Daily Mail said. Lively alleged that he engaged in sexually inappropriate behavior on the set and launched a retaliatory smear campaign after she spoke up during the production.
Baldoni denied the allegations and, in January, filed a countersuit, alleging defamation and extortion against Lively, her husband Ryan Reynolds and their publicity team. Baldoni contends that Lively and her movie star husband worked to take control of the film, which he said he spent years developing from Colleen Hoover’s best-selling novel about a woman surviving domestic violence.
Among Baldoni’s specific claims are that Swift and Reynolds pressured him into accepting one of Lively’s rewrites for the script, People reported. In his complaint, he described an alleged meeting at Lively and Reynolds’ Tribeca penthouse where the “Bad Blood” singer praised Lively’s script. “Baldoni understood the subtext: he needed to comply with Lively’s direction,” his complaint said.
Swift’s spokesperson blasted the move to subpoena the singer, saying she had nothing to do with the making of the movie. “Taylor Swift never set foot on the set of this movie,” the spokesperson said in a statement released to People.
That contention appears to have been contradicted by Lively’s statements while promoting the movie’s release in August 2024, BuzzFeed News reported this week. At the film’s New York screening, Lively said: “I mean, honestly, she was with me on this experience the whole time, all throughout it, so she really lived this with me. She’s a person who shows up for you, and I’m so grateful to have that love and support.”
Such statements also could be seen as one way that Swift came to believe that Lively had “been exploiting her name for a while,” as a source told the Daily Mail earlier this week. Swift also was “devastated” and “completely floored” after she received the subpoena, according to the Daily Mail. And, she may blame Lively for dragging her “into this mess,” as Elaine Lui of Laney Gossip reported.
In a letter to the court, Baldoni’s lawyers hit back at Lively’s claims that their subpoena to Swift seeks information and documents that are “irrelevant” to the case, according to the Daily Mail.
They said they hope to obtain information from Swift that is related to alleged “witness tampering and evidence spoliation,” related to Lively’s alleged attempt to “coerce” Swift into publicly siding with her in her Baldoni dispute.
In the letter, Baldoni’s team said that it had received information that Lively contacted Swift’s lawyers, demanding “that Swift release a statement of support for Lively” and suggesting that “private text messages in Lively’s possession would be released” if she refused to do do.
According to the letter, Baldoni’s lawyers had been “informed and believe” that Lively asked Swift to delete their text messages. The Daily Mail reported these communications likely contained details from their decade-long friendship, as well as possible evidence of “an attempt to intimidate and coerce a percipient witness in this litigation.”
In his lawsuit, Baldoni already shared copies of text messages between him and Lively, which his lawyers say show Swift participating, unwittingly or not, in an attempt to intimidate him into giving up control over aspects of the production. Baldoni has said he spent years developing an adaption of “It Ends With Us,” the best-selling novel by Colleen Hoover which explores a woman’s attempts to extricate herself from a marriage that has become abusive.
Among Baldoni’s specific claims are that Swift and Reynolds pressured him into accepting one of Lively’s rewrites for the script. In his complaint, he described an alleged meeting at Lively and Reynolds’ Tribeca penthouse where Swift praised Lively’s script. “Baldoni understood the subtext: he needed to comply with Lively’s direction,” his complaint said.
In an alleged text exchange between Baldoni and Lively following that interaction, the director referred to feeling this pressure from “Ryan and Taylor,” but nonetheless complimented the actor on her script changes. Lively allegedly responded by comparing herself to Khaleesi from “Game of Thrones” and called her husband and Swift her “dragons.”
Up until this year, Swift counted Lively among her closest confidantes, according to the Daily Mail. They live close to each other in New York’s trendy Tribeca neighborhood, and Swift is godmother to Lively’s three daughters.
Now, Swift is trying to distance herself from the “It Ends With Us” production, if she hasn’t already distanced herself from her friend. The statement issued by Swift’s spokesperson said: “Taylor Swift never set foot on the set of this movie, she was not involved in any casting or creative decisions, she did not score the film, she never saw an edit or made any notes on the film, she did not even see ‘It Ends With Us’ until weeks after its public release, and was traveling around the globe during 2023 and 2024 headlining the biggest tour in history.”