Latest news with #LivelyBaldoni
Times
23-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Times
Taylor Swift sidesteps Blake Lively lawsuit after blackmail claims
Taylor Swift has been spared the prospect of testifying in her friend Blake Lively's lawsuit after Justin Baldoni dropped his request seeking information from the pop superstar. Lively and Baldoni are locked in a bitter legal battle after starring opposite each other in last summer's blockbuster It Ends with Us. Lively accused Baldoni of sexual harassment while he countersued for defamation. Swift was dragged into the row through her friendship with Lively. Baldoni filed a subpoena demanding communications from their respective legal teams but the request has now been withdrawn. The news was welcomed by Lively's representatives, who accused Baldoni of using Swift's fame to generate headlines. '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,' a spokesman said. It Ends with Us, a romantic drama based on a popular Colleen Hoover novel, produced one of the most intense Hollywood legal rows of recent years. Lively, the film's lead actress, accused Baldoni, her director and co-star, of sexual harassment and of orchestrating a smear campaign against her. Baldoni, 41, alleges that Lively, 37, and her husband, Ryan Reynolds, attempted to destroy his career. A trial has been set for March next year in New York. • Inside Lively-Baldoni legal battle: texts, raw footage and a 2am apology Swift, 35, was pulled into the row as she was allegedly present at a meeting between the warring co-stars in which Lively was said to have attempted to intimidate Baldoni into making changes to a scene in the movie. A spokesman for the singer reacted with fury to the subpoena after it was filed this month. '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,' a representative said. Bryan Freedman, Baldoni's lawyer, had claimed that a source told him that Lively's legal team had attempted to extort Swift. He alleged that a lawyer threatened to leak private messages between the actress and Swift if she did not release a statement supporting her. Mike Gottlieb, Lively's lawyer, denied the claim and last week Judge Liman granted his motion to strike the letter from the docket. He also warned that Freedman could be sanctioned for 'future misuse of the court's docket'.
The Guardian
10-05-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Six great reads: the ‘misogyny slop ecosystem', Attenborough at 99, and the pain of Ticketmaster
David Attenborough may have inspired millions around the world to love and appreciate the natural world, but if you ever bump into him in a lift, it's better to ask him about rugby. This fascinating, moving and star-studded tribute from 99 admirers is perhaps the birthday present anyone would wish for if they made it to such a grand age. Read more It's a year since teachers in St Albans, a city just north of London, asked parents not to give younger children smartphones. How successful have they been? Amelia Gentleman visited the English city and found that while it is still far from a smartphone-free city for under-14s, something small and potentially significant has shifted. Read more Taken from Ian Mayes's new history of the Guardian from 1985-95, this extract looks back at how reporters such as Maggie O'Kane and Ed Vulliamy covered the grim events in Bosnia in the early 90s, and how what they saw made them question the idea of journalistic 'neutrality' – and even led one of them to later testify in the Hague. Read more 'Everyone loves a good celebrity dust-up, but having begun as just another Hollywood feud destined to be adapted into a prestige miniseries a decade hence, the Lively/Baldoni saga is morphing into something larger and possibly more ominous.' Why has this case, asked Steve Rose, such attracted an inordinate amount of attention from rightwing political figures in the US? Combine that with the dark arts of celebrity public relations and we are seeing a disturbing blurring of lines – between genuine and manufactured 'public opinion', and between celebrity and political discourse. Read more 'You may know the drill. You get online at 10am, several months before the show, and receive a place in the virtual queue. Perhaps you notice with dismay that your number is larger than the capacity of the venue. Perhaps you then lose your place because you've been misidentified as a bot, or the site crashes altogether … ' Last summer's Oasis ticket fiasco in the UK cemented Ticketmaster's reputation as many music fans' bête noire. Dorian Lynskey explores the history of how one company commands such influence over how we buy gig tickets. Read more 'Heavy Metal is an album as intriguing as its creator,' writes Tim Jonze of an intriguing new musical presence. 'It boasts vivid lyrics, amorphous arrangements and, thanks to the single Love Takes Miles, a bona fide pop banger. It's been compared to works by Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen and Tom Waits, although for me it shares its greatest affinity with another canonical classic: Van Morrison's Astral Weeks. Not so much in its sound as in the sense of a young man, wise beyond his years, attempting to reach some kind of other-worldly transcendence through music.' Read more
