Blake Lively doesn’t want anyone, especially Justin Baldoni, to know what she and Taylor Swift text, email or talk about – and the Another Simple Favor actress wants a federal judge to guarantee the pals’ privacy.
“Blake Lively respectfully submits this letter motion for a protective order regarding the Wayfarer Parties’ continuing demands for Ms. Lively’s communications with Taylor Swift (made again yesterday), which they have pursued at the same time they have refused to produce to Ms. Lively the documents they publicly claimed to have received as part of a deal to withdraw their subpoenas to Ms. Swift and her counsel,” declares a letter submitted to Judge Lewis J. Liman today from Lively lawyer Esra A. Hudson of Manatt, Phelps & Phillips. “Good cause exists for this request because it has been the Wayfarer Parties’ tactic since August 2024 to make Ms. Swift and her fan base central to their media strategy against Ms. Lively.”
It was the attorney’s latest against Baldoni, his Wayfarer Studios, execs and publicists.
In case you don’t know the point Hudson is making — after a big win for Lively, Ryan Reynolds, their publicist Leslie Sloane and The New York Times earlier this week — she makes it perfectly clear: “Ms. Swift is not central to Ms. Lively’s claims (unlike dozens of other witnesses she identified who the Wayfarer Parties have largely ignored), and is otherwise irrelevant to the Wayfarer Parties’ claims, which were dismissed on June 9.”
Godmother to one of Lively and Reynold’s children, Swift’s name has been bandied about in what is now a multi-lawsuit, multimillion-dollar battle between the It Ends With Us stars almost since Lively filed her sexual harassment and retaliation complaint against Baldoni and his inner circle with the California Civil Rights department on December 20. Escalating rapidly, the action saw more legal actions and then Lively herself filing an official suit against Baldoni and the Wayfarer gang on New Year’s Eve – followed by a $400 million defamation and extortion suit from Baldoni against Lively, Deadpool star Reynolds and Sloane. That complaint, dismissed by Judge Liman on June 9 with leave for the greatly trimmed amended complaint to be filed by June 23, had an intimidating cameo by Swift at a creative meeting between Lively and Baldoni at the former’s NYC apartment.
Sweetening the pot of sorts, Baldoni lawyers last month served a subpoena on Swift and her attorneys at Venables.
Almost immediately, a rep for Swift, who contributed a song for the It Ends With Us soundtrack for friend Lively, bluntly called out the subpoena as being “designed to use Taylor Swift’s name to draw public interest by creating tabloid clickbait instead of focusing on the facts of the case.” After attracting the kind of media attention usually reserved for the Second Coming or a Beyoncé or Swift tour announcement, Baldoni’s Bryan Freedman-led lawyers on May 22 withdrew the paperwork seeking information from Swift about what she knew about what occurred with Lively and Wayfarer Studios co-founder Baldoni on the domestic violence themed IEWU.
RELATED: Taylor Swift Blackmailed? Blake Lively’s Lawyer Decries “Scandalous” Claims By Justin Baldoni’s Team
End of Swift story?
Not really, as word on the street was the Baldoni parties dropped the subpoena because they got what they needed voluntarily.
Today, Lively lawyer Hudson says that, in fact, never happened. “The purpose was not to obtain discovery but rather press reports is consistent with the statements by counsel to Ms. Swift that they have not produced any materials to the Wayfarer Parties,” the attorney notes in a footnote to today’s correspondence. To that, the letter today to Judge Liman includes a May 22 email to Freedman, Lively attorneys and others from Swift lawyer Doug Baldridge on the subpoena being scuttled, stating “no documents are being produced, and no deposition is being scheduled.”
Reps for Baldoni had no comment Friday on the Lively lawyer letter to Judge Liman.
As has been the norm in this back and forth in the media and the courts, Lively’s reps had something to say today.
Despite the drama of this week, including subpoenas against Swift foil and Baldoni PR investor Scooter Braun and HYBE America, there are still no talks of a settlement between the Lively and Baldoni camps. Yet, with a March 9 trial getting closer every day, that might change as exit strategies come into focus.
In the end it could be a case of, to quote Taylor Swift, “look what you made me do.”
