Justin Baldoni Drops Taylor Swift Subpoena in Blake Lively Lawsuit
Taylor Swift no longer has to worry about being dragged into Justin Baldoni's ongoing legal action against his It Ends With Us co-star, Blake Lively. The Wrap reports that on Thursday, he dropped his subpoena against the singer.
Baldoni had claimed that Swift was present at Lively's Tribeca penthouse during discussions of rewriting one of the movie's pivotal scenes. Baldoni's suit further claimed that Lively called Reynolds and Swift her 'dragons' à la Game of Thrones in a text message.
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A rep for Swift refuted this description of events earlier this month when news of the subpoena first broke. '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 rep told Rolling Stone. The rep said the subpoena was 'designed to use Taylor Swift's name to draw public interest by creating tabloid clickbait instead of focusing on the facts of the case.'
Swift's law firm, Venable, described the subpoena as an 'abuse of the discovery process.' '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,' it said in a statement.
Baldoni's lawyer, Bryan Freedman, then alleged in a legal filing that Lively was attempting to extort a statement of support from Swift. He claimed that Lively's lawyers contacted Swift's legal team asking '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 come out.
Lively's lawyer described these claims as 'categorically false.' Her legal team then moved to penalize Baldoni's team in the form of sanctions and fees over the extortion claim. Three days later, Baldoni's team withdrew the subpoena.
Freedman did not immediately return Rolling Stone's request for comment.
'We are pleased that Justin Baldoni and the Wayfarer Parties have withdrawn their harassing subpoenas to Taylor Swift and her law firm,' a rep for Lively said, according to the Wrap. 'We supported the efforts of Taylor's team to quash these inappropriate subpoenas directed to her counsel and we will continue to stand up for any third party who is unjustly harassed or threatened in the process.'
In December, Lively accused Baldoni of sexual harassment and spearheading a smear campaign against her; she filed a lawsuit before the year was up. He countersued in January, alleging defamation, extortion, and invasion of privacy. A trial is scheduled for March.
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