The lawsuits between Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni are getting uglier and uglier by the day. This week, Lively’s legal team were forced to issue a statement denying that the actor threatened her friend, Taylor Swift, in order to get a message of public support from the singer. The allegation was made by Baldoni’s lawyer, Bryan Freedman, who has now seen the claim struck from the court docket by presiding Judge Lewis Liman, warning him against using the case to ‘promote public scandal.’
Swift was dragged into the legal battlemonths ago when she was named in Baldoni’s lawsuit as someone who Lively used to allegedly intimidate him into accepting changes, she’d made to the script for It Ends With Us. Baldoni alleges that Lively referred to Swift, and her husband Ryan Reynolds, as ‘dragons’ who protect her and invited them to a meeting at her house about the script. It was also claimed in reports that Swift was involved in the casting of Isabela Ferrer in the film, who stars as a younger version of Lively’s character, Lily Bloom.
Last week, Swift was subpoenaed by Baldoni’s team as a witness to the legal battle. In response, she issued a scathing statement, saying ‘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 did not even see It Ends With Us until weeks after its public release, and was travelling around the globe during 2023 and 2024 headlining the biggest tour in history.
‘Given that her involvement was licensing a song for the film, which 19 other artists also did, this subpoena is designed to use Taylor Swift’s name to draw public interest by creating tabloid clickbait instead of focusing on the facts of the case.’
Lively seconded the sentiment in her own statement, with her legal team saying Baldoni’s team ‘continue to turn a case of sexual harassment and retaliation into entertainment for the tabloids.’ They attempted to quash Swift’s subpoena, saying Baldoni’s team are seeking ‘irrelevant information’.
This week, Baldoni’s lawyer wrote a letter to the court saying that Swift is ‘highly likely to have reliable information’ and accused Lively of ‘witness tampering and evidence spoliation’. Freedman claims that Lively used ‘extortionate threats’ to pressure Swift into deleting their text messages, and that Michael Gottlieb, Lively’s lawyer, contacted one of Swift’s lawyers and ‘demanded’ she make a public statement of support.
According to Freedman, Gottlieb said that if Swift didn’t comply, ‘private text messages of a personal nature in Ms. Lively’s possession would be released.’ Lively’s lawyers have since denied that she used any threats or intimidation to gain public support from Swift, nor did she engage in any witness tampering or evidence spoliation.
Esra Hudson, Lively’s lawyer, condemned Freedman in his own letter to the court this week, saying his ‘anonymously sourced, baseless allegations recklessly levelled without any supporting evidence… are unequivocally and demonstrably false.’ Again, they say, Baldoni’s team are attempting to ‘launder scandalous and defamatory allegations about Ms. Lively and opposing counsel into the press’ that have nothing to do with the lawsuit, they claim.
Hudson pointed out that ‘within minutes’ of Freedman’s letter appearing on the court docket, publications started appearing online. TikTok was also awash with commentary about Freedman’s letter, many users presenting the information ‘as fact’.
‘This is a very serious matter, not Barnum & Bailey’s Circus,’ Lively’s spokesperson said. ‘The defendants continue to publicly intimidate, bully, shame and attack women’s rights and reputations.’
Freedman continues to insist that he is receiving information from a source ‘very closely linked’ to Swift, and that they claim Lively said she would release ’10 years’ of text messages if Swift didn’t post a public statement in support of her after last year’s Super Bowl, when Lively did not attend to much tabloid speculation.
Now, the presiding Judge Lewis Liman has sided with Lively’s legal team, saying Freedman’s letters were ‘improper’, ‘irrelevant’ and designed to ‘promote public scandal’.
It took the court less than 24 hours to see through Mr. Freedman’s irrelevant, improper and inflammatory accusations, strike them, remove them from the court and warn Mr. Freedman that further misconduct may be met with sanctions,’ a spokesperson for Lively said.
So, what next for the wild ordeal that is this court case? We have another year of it to come – with a trial date set for May 2026.