Justin Baldoni's Lawyers Accuse Blake Lively's Lawyers of Extorting Taylor Swift
Days after a subpoena roped Taylor Swift into the legal battle between Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni, the latter's lawyers accused the actress' legal team of attempting to extort a public statement out of the singer.
According to a letter filed Wednesday in court by Baldoni's lawyer Bryan Freedman, Lively's lawyer Michael Gottlieb allegedly demanded, via Swift's law firm Venable, 'that Ms. Swift release a statement of support for Ms. Lively, intimating that, if Ms. Swift refused to do so, private text messages of a personal nature' would be released to the public.
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Freedman claimed that a rep for Swift 'addressed these inappropriate and apparently extortionate threats,' which reflect an alleged pattern of intimidating and coercing witnesses by Lively's legal team, the letter stated.
In response to Friedman's letter, Gottlieb said in a statement to the Hollywood Reporter that the accusations were '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 continued.
'This is what we have come to expect from the Wayfarer parties' lawyers, who appear to love nothing more than shooting first, without any evidence, and with no care for the people they are harming in the process. We will imminently file motions with the court to hold these attorneys accountable for their misconduct here.'
Swift's law firm, Venable, previously called the subpoena an 'abuse of the discovery process,' meant to distract from the case.'
'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 on Monday. '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.'
Last week, Swift's spokesperson slammed the singer's involvement, telling Rolling Stone that Swift's connection to It Ends With Us was limited to licensing her song 'My Tears Ricochet.'
'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,' the spokesperson said.
Baldoni has been in a legal battle with Lively since December, when she sued him for alleged sexual harassment and a smear campaign. Baldoni has since denied the allegations and countersued Lively, her husband Ryan Reynolds, and their publicist, alleging civil extortion and defamation. Lively's case will go to trial in March 2026.
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