Blake Lively has had enough of Justin Baldoni’s accusations seeking to destroy her longtime friendship with best friend Taylor Swift. After attempting to drag the billionaire pop star into the impending legal proceedings tied to the It Ends With Us legal drama, the film director’s legal team accused A Simple Favor‘s lawyer of threatening to out private messages – seemingly exchanged between Lively and Swift.
The latest twist comes after Lively and her husband Ryan Reynolds filed a motion to bury the subpoena directed towards the Eras Tour crafter’s attorneys at the law firm Venable.
Blake Lively forced Taylor Swift to publicly support her in fight against Justin Baldoni: New filing
Court documents suggest that Blake’s lead attorney, Michael Gottlieb, allegedly pushed the firm representing Taylor to urge her to publicly demonstrate her support for the Shallows actress. The filing states Gottlieb “demanded that Ms. Swift release a statement of support for Ms. Lively, intimating that, if Ms. Swift refused to do so, private text messages of a personal nature in Ms. Lively’s possession would be released,” as per Page Six.
Justin Baldoni and Wayfarer Studios’ lawyers claim their intel came from an anonymous source, “who is likely to have reliable information.” Per the official filing, Blake is also believed to have asked the 35-year-old musician to “delete their text messages.” Although the timeline remains hazy, the Jane the Virgin alum’s attorneys alleged that one of Swift’s representatives “addressed these inappropriate and apparently extortionate threats in at least one written communication transmitted to Mr. Gottlieb.”
Actress’ legal team torches allegations
Blake Lively’s counsel has slammed these allegations as “categorically false.” Speaking for himself and his client, the attorney hit back: “We unequivocally deny all of these so-called allegations, which are cowardly sourced to supposed anonymous sources, and completely untethered from reality.”
As a response to these accusations spilling over from Justin’s side, the Gossip Girl star’s team has filed to squash Baldoni’s letter due to its “baseless, unnecessary, improper and abusive” claims unsupported by solid evidence, according to TMZ. Lawyer Esra Hudson’s letter pushing to get the accusations struck out in court stated that Baldoni team’s “letter, which was not filed with any evidentiary support of any kind, much less anything under oath, falsely accuses Ms. Lively, and her counsel, of engaging in ‘witness tampering and evidence spoliation’ based on an undisclosed anonymous source,” according to Variety.
Taylor Swift subpoenaed, denies involvement in It Ends With Us matters
Earlier this month, the brewing drama took a spicy turn when Baldoni hit Taylor Swift with a subpoena. Now, his legal team says that they are after those alleged texts between the gal pals that seem to have rattled Lively. They stated that if those communications are obtained through the subpoena, “they would evidence an attempt to intimidate and coerce a percipient witness in this litigation.”
Per previous revelations as cited in Baldoni’s defamation lawsuit against Blake, she appeared to have referred to Swift as “one of her dragons” having her back over It Ends With Us rewrites. Taylor was also accused of having been actively involved in Isabela Ferrer’s casting as young Lily Bloom, Lively’s character. However, a spokesperson for the crooner denied all claims related to her supposed involvement in the film It Ends With Us.
The rep issued the statement to multiple US media outlets: “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.”