Sony Pictures/Getty Image
Audio By Carbonatix
Popstar Taylor Swift is officially being dragged into the Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni lawsuit. According to a New York City judge, Baldoni can obtain messages between Blake Lively and Taylor Swift that pertain to their film It Ends With Us.
Back in late 2024, actress Blake Lively — who starred in It Ends With Us alongside Justin Baldoni, who also directed the film — filed a lawsuit alleging inappropriate on-set behavior, harassment, and coordinating a smear campaign.
In response, Baldoni then responded by filing a $400 million countersuit against Blake Lively, her husband Ryan Reynolds, Lively’s PR representative Leslie Sloane, and the New York Times alleging extortion, defamation, breach of contract, and more. Earlier this month, however, the judge tossed out the parts of the lawsuit related to sexual harassment were legally protected by litigation privilege.
The latest development in the case has swayed in Baldoni’s favor, however, as the presiding judge ruled he may have accesses to Lively’s text messages with Taylor Swift that relate to It Ends With Us.
“Given that Lively has represented that Swift had knowledge of complaints or discussions about the working environment on the film, among other issues, the requests for messages with Swift regarding the film and this action are reasonably tailored to discover information that would prove or disprove Lively’s harassment and retaliation claims,” the judge said in his ruling.
“A motion or request may be, and in this case often has been, both a legitimate litigation tactic and an attempt to maneuver in the broader court of public opinion,” Judge Lewis Liman added in response to Lively’s assertion that involving Swift was an attempt by Baldoni to “drag Swift into the conflict as part of a public relations strategy.”
It Ends With Us, the film at the center of the high-profile lawsuit, was released in August 2024 and grossed $351 million at the box office. Based on the Colleen Hoover novel of the same name, It Ends With Us ironically follows a woman who is in an abusive relationship.
Lively’s lawsuit against Baldoni and his production company Wayfarer Studios is set to go to trial in March 2026.