Blake Lively wants Justin Baldoni to leave her friend Taylor Swift out of this. Following TMZ’s Friday report that Baldoni’s legal team has officially subpoenaed Swift in the ongoing legal battle between the former It Ends With Us co-stars, a representative for Lively issued a statement to Deadline criticizing the move. “Mr Baldoni, Mr Sarowitz, and team continue to turn a case of sexual harassment and retaliation into entertainment for the tabloids,” the statement said in part, pointing to the subpoenaing of “Taylor Swift, a woman who has given a voice to millions the world over,” as an example. “This is a very serious legal matter, not Barnum & Bailey’s Circus. The defendants continue to publicly intimidate, bully, shame and attack women’s rights and reputations.” Lively previously sued Baldoni in December for alleged sexual harassment and a retaliatory smear campaign; he denied her claims and filed a countersuit for defamation and extortion. The new statement from Lively’s rep also accuses Baldoni’s legal team of wanting to “strike down” a victims’ rights law in California, concluding, “The disturbing actions by a billionaire, men who made their careers as ‘female allies’ and their team continue to show their true colors.”

We already know that Swift would very much like to be excluded from this narrative. In a statement responding to the subpoena, a spokesperson for Swift argued that she should not be part of this dispute. “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 spokesperson said. Baldoni’s lawsuit alluded to Swift as a “megacelebrity” whose friendship Lively allegedly leveraged in-person because of a disagreement over the film. His filing also includes a text message that Lively purportedly sent Baldoni invoking Swift and Ryan Reynolds as her “dragons.” Meanwhile, It Ends With Us star Isabela Ferrer previously told Extra that she’d learned that Taylor Swift had influenced her casting in the film.

Swift’s spokesperson maintained that the singer’s sole connection to It Ends With Us was licensing her song “My Tears Ricochet” for use in a trailer and scene. “Given that her involvement was licensing a song for the film, which 19 other artists also did,” the spokesperson’s statement said, “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.” Regardless of whether or not Swift was Lively’s “dragon” before, it seems clear that she doesn’t want to be dragged in now.

• [Deadline]
• [TMZ]

Related

• Blake Lively Preparing to Testify Against Justin Baldoni
• Please Exclude Them From the Narrative
• Reputation (Taylor’s Version) Teases: An Endless Timeline
• Blake Lively Speaks Up for Those Who Can’t

 And reps for both Swift and Blake Lively aren’t happy about it.