Taylor Swift Doubles Down on Justin Baldoni’s ‘Abusive’ Subpoena After She Felt ‘Exploited’ by Blake Lively Mentioning Her
Taylor Swift‘s lawyers have responded to Justin Baldoni‘s subpoena after they were also brought in to the legal battle. The It Ends With Us director roped in Swift and her law firm to the legal drama after the “Lover” signer was mentioned in Blake Lively‘s texts.
Taylor Swift’s longtime lawyers at the law firm Venable responded, “Venable had nothing to do with the film at issue or any of the claims or defenses asserted in the underlying lawsuit,” wrote the firm in a motion to quash, obtained by Billboard. “There is no reason for this subpoena other than to distract from the facts of the case and impose undue burden and expense on a non-party.”
The law firm then described that Baldoni’s subpoena was a “fishing expedition. “Even if Venable were somehow involved (again, it is not),” then the director should seek the documents from Lively and her husband, Ryan Reynolds. The couple aims to throw out Baldoni’s subpoena, calling it an “abuse of the discovery process” in a court filing.
Related: A Timeline of Taylor Swift & Blake Lively’s Friendship & Rift
Previously, Swift’s representatives said that the singer “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, [and] she never saw an edit or made any notes on the film.” They added that Swift did not see It Ends With Us until “weeks after its release” as she was “travelling around the globe” on tour at the time.
“The connection Taylor had to this film was permitting the use of one song, ‘My Tears Ricochet,’” the representative continued. “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.”
Shortly after the news of the subpoena broke, a source told the Daily Mail that the situation put a dent in their friendship. “Taylor has been aware that Blake has been exploiting her name for a while now, but this subpoena takes it to a whole new level,” a source told the gossip publication.
However, other sources claim that their friendship is on the mend. “Blake knew she and Taylor would come back from this at some point and that their friendship wasn’t done for good,” a source told People in late April. “Taylor was really hurt by this situation, so she’s relieved they were able to recover from this and put it all behind them because it wasn’t something she took lightly.”
The tension arose after text messages emerged in Justin Baldoni’s countersuit against Lively, where the actress allegedly referred to Swift as one of her “dragons” alongside husband Ryan Reynolds. After meeting with Justin Baldoni to discuss a change in the film, Lively texted the director that reads “If you ever get around to watching Game of Thrones you’ll appreciate that I’m Khaleesi and, like her, I happen to have a few dragons. For better or worse, but usually for better. Because my dragons also protect those I fight for. So really we all benefit from those gorgeous monsters of mine. You will too, I can promise you.”
