Blake Lively’s legal team filed a new motion to request that Justin Baldoni’s claims about her friend Taylor Swift be stricken from the record, Us Weekly can confirm.
In the letter obtained by Us, Lively’s team noted that Baldoni’s letter was filed without “evidentiary support of any kind.”
“It should be unnecessary to respond to anonymously sourced, baseless allegations recklessly leveled without any supporting evidence,” the note reads. “It is worth stating for the record, however, that each of the allegations in the Freedman Letter is unequivocally and demonstrably false.”
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Justin Baldoni’s legal team contends that Blake Lively allegedly tried to get friend Taylor Swift to publicly support her side in their ongoing lawsuit.
Baldoni’s camp recently subpoenaed Swift, 35, over her reported involvement in the case, which Lively, 37, and her attorneys have since requested to dismiss. In a new court letter obtained by Us Weekly, Baldoni’s attorneys claim that Lively urged Swift to delete any personal text messages.
Bryan Freedman, counsel for Baldoni, further alleged that one of Lively’s attorneys also demanded that Swift publicly release a statement of support and, if not, the women’s texts would be publicly released. Freedman believes that such alleged threats are evidence of “an attempt to intimidate and coerce a percipient witness in this litigation.” Freedman’s teams, however, did not submit any evidence of the proposed claims.
A lawyer for Lively, meanwhile, denied the latest allegations.
“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,” her attorney Mike Gottlieb told Us in a statement. “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.”
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Lively sued Baldoni, 41, for sexual harassment, fostering a hostile work environment and trying to ruin her reputation, stemming from their experience working on 2024’s It Ends With Us. Lively starred in the film and also served as an executive producer. Baldoni, meanwhile, also had a lead role opposite Lively and directed the project.
Baldoni denied Lively’s claims, ultimately filing a $400 million defamation suit against the Gossip Girl alum and her husband, Ryan Reynolds, earlier this year. His legal team has repeatedly claimed that Swift was secretly involved in Lively’s alleged production takeover. A subpoena sent to Swift earlier this month was, according to Freedman, meant to collect any evidence pointing to the pop star supporting Lively. (Lively and Reynolds, 48, have denied Baldoni’s accusations.)
“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,” a spokesperson for Swift told Us in a Friday, May 9, statement. “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.”
The rep 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.”
Swift has not publicly addressed Baldoni and Lively’s lawsuit, with a source revealing in the latest issue of Us Weekly that her friendship with the actress has “strained” as a result of the court battle.
“Their friendship is not what it used to be,” the insider told Us. “Taylor is very uncomfortable about being pulled into the lawsuit. It’s a huge thing now.”
