Blake Lively has been accused of asking Taylor Swift to "delete text messages" and "release a statement of support" according to new filings made by Justin Baldoni's lawyers.
On May 14 the lawyers for the actor and Wayfarer Productions told a judge that they believe the subpoena issued to Taylor on May 9 was necessary because of her alleged involvement with Blake's smear campaign. The letter was sent after Blake and husband Ryan Reynolds' lawyers demanded that the subpoena was irrelevant and should be dismissed.
© GC Images"The Lively Defendants' insistence that the Subpoena seeks irrelevant information is wrong," Bryan Freedman wrote in the letter, claiming that he had received a tip from a "source who is highly likely to have reliable information," that the actress had asked her close friend Taylor to delete text messages sent between the two.
He also alleged that at one point an attorney for Blake contacted Taylor's attorney "and demanded that Ms. Swift release a statement of support for Ms. Lively," while "intimating that if Ms. Swift refused to do so, private text messages of a personal nature in Ms. Lively's possession would be released".
© Ethan MillerThe letter from Bryan goes on to claim that Taylor's attorneys "addressed these inappropriate and apparently extortionate threats" in a reply to Blake's lawyers, adding: "It is those communications that the Wayfarer Parties seek to obtain [as potential evidence of] an attempt to intimidate and coerce a percipient witness in this litigation."
HELLO! has contacted representatives for Taylor for comment.
"This is categorically false. We unequivocally deny all of these so-called allegations, which are cowardly sourced to supposed anonymous sources, and completely untethered from reality," said Blake's attorney Mike Gottlieb in response.
"This is what we have come to expect from the Wayfarer parties’ lawyers, who appear to love nothing more than shooting first, without any evidence, and with no care for the people they are harming in the process. We will imminently file motions with the court to hold these attorneys accountable for their misconduct here."
© Getty Images for Sony PicturesBlake and Justin are in the midst of a legal battle after working together on It Ends With Us.
During promotion for the fiom, Blake was criticized for failing to discuss the film's themes of domestic abuse, and for using the press tour to also promote her hair care and drinks brand.
In December she filed a lawsuit in which she alleged a hostile work environment, "severe emotional distress," and "sinister retaliatory tactics" in an effort to smear her name.
Blake claimed that after she reported his bad behavior to her higher-ups, Justin hired a PR crisis team to launch a smear campaign against her, in case she ever went public with her claims.
© USWIn response, Justin filed a lawsuit against the New York Times which published the first story on Blake's complaints, and a second against Blake and Ryan and her PR team for defamation. Justin has also accused the A Simple Favor actress of taking over his directorial responsibilities on set, and attempting to wrestle creative control of the film away from him.
The original subpoena was filed after allegations that during a meeting at Blake and her husband Ryan's New York City apartment, in the middle of filming, Taylor arrived to "offer her two cents" and "began praising Lively's script," of which "Baldoni understood the subtext: he needed to comply with Lively's direction".
In a text exchange following the meeting, Justin told Blake that he liked her script changes and told her that he "would have felt that way without Ryan and Taylor".
© GettyA representative for Taylor told HELLO! after the subpoena was sent that "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".
They added: "The connection Taylor had to this film was permitting the use of one song, "My Tears Ricochet." Given that her involvement was licensing a song for the film, which 19 other artists also did, this document 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".
