Director Justin Baldoni’s legal team is trying to suggest the possibility of bad blood between actor Blake Lively and pop star Taylor Swift.
Baldoni’s attorney Bryan Freedman claimed in a letter filed in court on Wednesday that Lively’s lawyer had reached out to Venable, the law firm that represents Swift, to demand that the singer “release a statement of support for Ms. Lively” as the “It Ends With Us” stars’ never-ending legal feud drags on.
Citing an “undisclosed source,” Freedman claimed that Lively’s attorney Michael Gottlieb had implied to Venable that Swift’s “private text messages of a personal nature” would be leaked to the public if the singer didn’t comply, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
Gottlieb, however, told People that any suggestion Lively was attempting to extort Swift 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,” Gottlieb said.
Baldoni’s lawyer filed the letter a day after Swift’s lawyers at Venable asked a court to throw out a subpoena from Baldoni’s legal team.
Swift’s lawyers called the subpoena a “fishing expedition,” according to Billboard, and noted that “even if Venable were somehow involved (again, it is not),” Baldoni should get the requested documents directly from Lively and her husband, Ryan Reynolds.
Although Swift and Lively are friends, the singer had nothing to do with “It Ends With Us” other than approving the use of the song “My Tears Ricochet,” an unnamed Swift rep told People.
“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 rep said.
“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,” the rep continued.
Freedman, as well as Swift’s representatives, did not immediately respond to HuffPost’s request for comment.