Blake Lively 'threatened' to leak Taylor Swift's texts unless she sided with her in Justin Baldoni feud
LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA: Justin Baldoni’s legal team has alleged that Blake Lively threatened to leak private text messages exchanged between her and Taylor Swift if she did not support her publicly amid her feud with her ‘It Ends With Us’ co-star and director.
The accusation was made in a legal letter filed Wednesday, May 14, by the actor's lawyers as the actress’ team attempted to cancel their subpoena to the pop sensation in the case, as reported by the Daily Mail.
Blake Lively allegedly threatened and demanded Taylor Swift’s public support
The official letter by the ‘Jane the Virgin’ star’s team, led by Bryan Freedman, claimed that Blake Lively’s lead counsel, Michael Gottlieb of Willkie Farr, “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.”
Freedman also stated that Swift’s team responded to Lively's “inappropriate and apparently extortionate threats in at least one written communication transmitted to Mr Gottlieb.”
“It is those communications that [Baldoni's team] seeks to obtain by way of subpoena, as they would evidence an attempt to intimidate and coerce a percipient witness in this litigation,” the legal letter added.
Blake Lively’s team calls accusations of 'threatening' Taylor Swift 'cowardly sourced'
But Michael Gottlieb has denied Bryan Freedman’s claims.
He said, “We unequivocally deny all of these so-called allegations, which are cowardly sourced to supposed anonymous sources, and completely untethered from reality,” as reported by Page Six.
The attorney further added, “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.”
Taylor Swift’s representative slammed subpoena sent to her
This came after Taylor Swift was reportedly left shocked when she was subpoenaed in the legal drama.
The pop star has been accused of being involved in the film’s production by Baldoni and his team.
But a representative for the Grammy winner singer told Page Six, “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.”
“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,” they added.
