What Happened Between Taylor Swift & Blake Lively? The Real Reason the Actress Is Missing From the Super Bowl

2015: Taylor Swift and Blake Lively Become Friends

The duo’s friendship can be traced back to 2015 after Lively shared a photo from a L’Oreal campaign referencing Swift’s “Bad Blood” music video. The photo caught Swift’s attention, and the two started hanging out. Their friendship has become so close that Swift included the names of Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds‘ children in her song “Betty” and featured their kid James in her song “Gorgeous.”

A source even told The Daily Mail recently that “Taylor Swift admires that Blake Lively is a ballsy chick who speaks her mind, swears like a trooper, and refuses to be controlled by anyone. That’s the real reason they bonded and became firm friends when they first met 10 years ago.” However, the same source claims that “Blake has always gone full throttle about everything. She never holds back and that’s what has caused the tide to turn on her. Taylor has tried to help tone Blake down in the past, but she now knows it’s never going to happen.”

January 2024: Meeting With Justin Baldoni at Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds’ NYC Apartment

At the center of the allegations is a meeting that took place at Blake Lively and Ryan Reynold’s NYC apparent. That meeting, with Justin Baldoni, was supposed to touch upon a scene for It Ends With Us that had been rewritten by Lively. Baldoni has characterized the meeting as heated and said he felt ambushed because Ryan Reynolds and Taylor Swift showed up.

January 2024: Ryan Reynolds and Taylor Swift Show Up

As the meeting was wrapping up, Reynolds and Swift reportedly showed up. TMZ is reporting via a source close to Swift that she had no idea Baldoni would be there, she simply went up to see her friend at an agreed-upon time. According to the source Swift walked in when the meeting was almost over and was introduced to Baldoni for the first and only time.

January 2024: Blake Lively Texts Baldoni that She’s Khaleesi and Taylor and Ryan her Protective “Dragons”

After the meeting, Lively reportedly sent a text message to Baldoni 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.”

The implication, according to reports, is that Taylor Swift and Ryan Reynolds are her protective “dragons.”

January 2025: The Blake Lively Texts Are Released

Reports of a distancing between Swift and Lively come after the Blake Lively texts are released, with the same source telling TMZ that according to Taylor, the dragon reference is a “weird to say that about a friend.”

Another source told The Daily Mail that “Right now, while they’re still close, there’s a slight shift because of the It Ends With Us drama. Taylor doesn’t like the fact that she’s been dragged into it.”

“For the time being she is taking a step back from Blake because she doesn’t want to get tangled in this more than she already has – which is far more than she ever needed to be,” the insider continued.

A second source had also told The Daily Mail that, “Taylor has politely backed away from it all. She is conscious of her own image and hates that she was even mentioned.”

However, a source close to Blake tells TMZ the two still “talk regularly,” and that Swift was upset about being involved and the “dragons” remark, but Lively has since apologized and the two had a good cry and hugged it out.

February 9, 2025: Blake Lively does not attend the Super Bowl with Taylor Swift

Multiple sources have confirmed that the Gossip Girl alum won’t be joining Swift’s star-studded Super Bowl celebration in 2025, marking a significant shift from last year when Lively and her husband Ryan Reynolds were among Swift’s special guests. Ice Spice who attended last year came along with Swift.