{"id":6566,"date":"2025-06-19T02:00:29","date_gmt":"2025-06-19T02:00:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/taylor-swift-blake-lively-texts-must-go-to-justin-baldoni-judge\/"},"modified":"2025-06-19T02:00:29","modified_gmt":"2025-06-19T02:00:29","slug":"taylor-swift-blake-lively-texts-must-go-to-justin-baldoni-judge","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/taylor-swift-blake-lively-texts-must-go-to-justin-baldoni-judge\/","title":{"rendered":"Taylor Swift & Blake Lively Texts Must Go to Justin Baldoni: Judge"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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\n\tB<\/span>lake Lively and Taylor Swift\u2019s text messages will have to be handed over in litigation over the movie It Ends With Us<\/em>, with a judge determining that the friends\u2019 conversations about the working environment on set are relevant to Lively\u2019s sexual harassment and retaliation claims against co-star and director Justin Baldoni.<\/p>\n

\n\tBaldoni and his production company, Wayfarer Studios, prevailed Wednesday (June 18) on the issue of Swift\u2019s text messages, which have taken center stage in Lively\u2019s It Ends With Us<\/em> lawsuit over the past month. Baldoni first tried to get the texts directly from Swift herself, but then dropped his subpoena on the pop superstar, opting instead to seek the messages from Lively in the normal discovery process.<\/p>\n

\n\tLively\u2019s lawyers fought that request last week, saying the actress\u2019 texts with Swift have no place in court and Baldoni is just trying to make headlines. But Judge Lewis J. Liman says these messages are indeed relevant, citing Lively\u2019s own discovery disclosures that identified Swift as someone who would know that Baldoni sexually harassed her on set and then orchestrated a retaliatory smear campaign after she complained.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cGiven that Lively has represented that Swift had knowledge of complaints or discussions about the working environment on the film, among other issues, the requests for messages with Swift regarding the film and this action are reasonably tailored to discover information that would prove or disprove Lively\u2019s harassment and retaliation claims,\u201d writes the judge.<\/p>\n

\n\tAs for Lively\u2019s claim that Baldoni is only involving Swift in the case to prop up a public relations narrative, Judge Liman says \u201cthis concern does not justify denying the Wayfarer parties relevant discovery.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cA motion or request may be, and in this case often has been, both a legitimate litigation tactic and an attempt to maneuver in the broader court of public opinion,\u201d writes the judge. \u201cThe mere fact that the request has been discussed in the press does not render it illegitimate.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tA spokesperson for Lively reacted to the decision on Wednesday by noting that the actress has \u201cproduced far more documents in this case\u201d than Baldoni. Lively\u2019s rep also says Baldoni and his publicity team have been trying to \u201cdrag Taylor Swift\u201d into the debacle since they launched their alleged retaliatory smear campaign last summer.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWe will continue to call out Baldoni\u2019s relentless efforts to exploit Ms. Swift\u2019s popularity, which from day one has been nothing more than a distraction from the serious sexual harassment and retaliation accusations he and the Wayfarer parties are facing,\u201d adds Lively\u2019s spokesperson.<\/p>\n

\n\tA rep for Baldoni declined to comment on the decision.<\/p>\n

\n\tSwift\u2019s reps did not immediately return a request for comment on the matter. In a previous statement from May, the singer\u2019s team said she had no involvement in It Ends With Us<\/em> and that Baldoni\u2019s subpoena against her was \u201cdesigned to use Taylor Swift\u2019s name to draw public interest by creating tabloid clickbait instead of focusing on the facts of the case.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe exchange of documents in Lively\u2019s harassment and retaliation lawsuit, which has also dragged in Swift\u2019s public opponent, Scooter Braun<\/strong>, is geared towards preparing for a trial in 2026. Baldoni has tried to bring a countersuit accusing Lively and her inner circle of defamation, but Judge Liman threw out those claims as legally invalid last week.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Blake Lively and Taylor Swift\u2019s text messages will have to be handed over in litigation over the movie It Ends With Us, with a judge determining that the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6567,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[4556,4554,423,2001,5874,3029,3028,1546],"class_list":["post-6566","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lawyers","tag-baldoni","tag-blake","tag-judge","tag-justin","tag-lively","tag-swift","tag-taylor","tag-texts"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6566","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6566"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6566\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6567"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6566"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6566"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6566"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}