New court documents from Justin Baldoni’s legal team accuse Blake Lively of asking Taylor Swift to delete text messages and publicly support her, escalating the ongoing legal battle between Lively and Baldoni.
On May 14, Baldoni’s lawyers submitted a letter to the court defending a subpoena served on Swift on May 9. They claim Swift may be involved in a smear campaign against Baldoni allegedly orchestrated by Lively. According to the letter, a credible source reported that Lively requested Swift to remove messages exchanged between them. The letter also alleges that Lively’s attorney contacted Swift’s legal team demanding a public statement of support, threatening to leak private messages if Swift refused.
Baldoni’s legal team called these actions “inappropriate and apparently extortionate threats” and are seeking the communications as evidence of witness intimidation.
Blake Lively’s lawyer Mike Gottlieb strongly denied the claims, calling them “cowardly” and “untethered from reality.” He announced plans to file motions to hold Baldoni’s lawyers accountable for their conduct.
This dispute arises from the production of the film It Ends With Us. Lively filed a lawsuit alleging a hostile work environment and a retaliatory smear campaign by Baldoni after reporting his behavior. Baldoni responded with defamation suits against Lively, her husband Ryan Reynolds, and her PR team, accusing them of undermining his creative control.
The subpoena involving Taylor Swift came after claims that she visited Lively and Reynolds’s NYC apartment during filming to praise Lively’s script changes. Baldoni viewed this as pressure to conform to Lively’s direction.
Swift’s representatives told HELLO! magazine that the singer’s involvement was limited to licensing her song “My Tears Ricochet.” They emphasized Swift never visited the film set, made creative decisions, or reviewed the movie prior to release. They dismissed the subpoena as an attempt to exploit Swift’s name for “tabloid clickbait” instead of addressing the facts.