Taylor Swift’s legal team is seeking to reject Justin Baldoni’s subpoena amid his ongoing legal battle with Blake Lively.
Legal documents obtained by Billboard on May 13 revealed that the legal firm representing Swift, 35, criticized a subpoena as “an abuse of the discovery process” in a legal motion filed on May 12. The firm, Venable, was subpoenaed alongside Swift on April 29 in connection with Baldoni and Lively’s It Ends With Us legal dispute, according to details disclosed in Venable’s motion.
Venable’s filing argued that Baldoni, 41, had subpoenaed Swift, a close friend of Lively, 37, in an attempt to divert attention from his legal case. The motion stated, “Venable had nothing to do with the film at issue or any of the claims or defenses asserted in the underlying lawsuit. 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.”
Venable’s motion followed a response from a representative for Swift, who criticized Baldoni’s attorneys in a statement to Us Weekly on May 9. The statement clarified that “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,” adding that “She did not even see It Ends With Us until weeks after its public release, and was traveling around the globe during 2023 and 2024 headlining the biggest tour in history.”
Baldoni — who directed and starred opposite Lively in 2024’s It Ends With Us — and Lively’s legal battle went public in December 2024 when Lively filed a sexual harassment lawsuit against him. Baldoni filed a $400 million countersuit, which also targeted Lively’s husband, Ryan Reynolds, and her publicist Leslie Sloane. Lively, Baldoni and their legal teams have vehemently denied each other’s accusations.
In Venable’s motion, further details into Baldoni’s subpoena were also unveiled, including his request for all communications between Swift and Lively, as well as Swift and Reynolds, 48, and the couple’s legal team, per Billboard. Venable claimed that Baldoni should have sourced the communications from Lively and Reynolds directly.
Swift’s involvement in It Ends With Us was outlined in her lawyer’s statement to Us on May 9. “The connection Taylor had to this film was permitting the use of one song, ‘My Tears Ricochet.’ Given that her involvement was licensing a song for the film, which 19 other artists also did, 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.”
Last week, a lawyer for Lively, Mike Gottleib, criticized the idea of Swift and Reynolds being subpoenaed by Baldoni during an interview with People. “This is a case about what happened to Blake Lively when she raised claims of sexual harassment on the set,” he said in an article published by the outlet on May 8. “It’s not a case about how songs were chosen for the movie. It’s not a case about fictional Marvel characters in Deadpool movies.” (In January, Baldoni also accused Reynolds of basing the Deadpool & Wolverine character “Nicepool” on him, requesting that Disney and Marvel Studios “preserve all existing documents and data relevant,” and all docs “relating to or reflecting deliberate attempt to mock.”)
Gottleib continued, “You have to ask the question … why are these people being subpoenaed? Do they have any actual relevance to the case at hand? You can’t just go around subpoenaing people because they’re famous and you think it will generate a bunch of headlines. And the federal courts don’t tolerate that kind of behavior.”
Baldoni’s lawyer Bryan Freedman responded to Gottlieb’s comments in a subsequent statement. “Although obviously uncomfortable for the Lively parties, the truth is not a distraction,” Freedman wrote. “The truth has been clearly shown through unedited receipts, documents and real life footage. More to come. Blake was the one who brought her high-profile friends into this situation without concern for their own personal or public backlash. As the truth shows, she used her Dragons to manipulate Justin at every turn.”
In a March issue of Us, a source exclusively shared that Swift “wasn’t happy with being brought into the legal mess.” Us also revealed on Monday that Lively and Swift’s relationship is now “strained,” with the friendship proving “not what it used to be” as Swift keeps her distance from the actress.
