Taylor Swift, Hugh Jackman to be subpoenaed in Blake Lively-Justin Baldoni legal saga—report
Taylor Swift and Hugh Jackman will reportedly be subpoenaed in the legal war between It Ends with Us stars Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni.
An anonymous source told The Daily Mail on Tuesday, April 22 that Swift and Jackman will "definitely be served this week."
"It could happen at any time," the source said, adding that Swift has been "waiting."
Baldoni, in his 179-page $400 million (P23.4 billion) lawsuit against Lively and her husband Ryan Reynolds, accused her of hijacking the production of It Ends with Us. The 2024 movie, based on the bestselling novel of the same name, starred Lively and Baldoni, who also served as the director. He also accused her of defaming him and Reynolds of extorting him.
In the complaint, Baldoni alleged that Swift was among those who pressured him into accepting one of Lively's rewrites for It Ends With Us. He claimed that Lively asked to "take a pass" on the film's rooftop scene, where her character Lily Bloom meets Baldoni's Ryle Kincaid for the first time. According to Baldoni, he was "reluctant" to let Lively "rewrite this key scene," though he "agreed to take a look at what she put together." He noted that her version was "dramatically" different from how the script was originally written.
With her "exceedingly mild resistance," Baldoni claimed that Lively "went silent for multiple days." He then recalled texting Lively that her rewrite "didn’t feel great for me." He also mentioned Reynolds and "another megacelebrity friend" who's "influential and wealthy." The filing states that the friend is Swift.
Baldoni said he was "summoned" by Reynolds to their penthouse in New York. Swift supposedly arrived later on and "began praising Lively’s script." For him, that meeting meant "he needed to comply with Lively’s direction for the script."
According to Baldoni, he texted Lively that while her supposed rewrite was "so much more fun and interesting," he "would have felt that way without Ryan and Taylor" present. He said he didn't need "Reynolds and her megacelebrity friend to pressure him." Lively allegedly responded to him by saying she's Khaleesi, a character from the Game of Thrones, and alluded to Reynolds and Swift being her "dragons."
Swift's my tears ricochet was used in the movie and its trailer.
As for Jackman, he's a close friend of Reynolds and Lively. He and Swift attended a National Football League game with the couple in 2023.
Ongoing legal battle
The legal saga of Lively and Baldoni stemmed from her filing a sexual harassment complaint against him and Jamey Heath of Wayfarer Studios, the producer of It Ends with Us. She also accused them of running a smear campaign against her.
In her complaint, Lively accused Baldoni and Heath of telling her about their past sexual relationships and "previous porn addiction." Heath also allegedly showed Lively a video of his wife naked and giving birth. Baldoni and Heath likewise supposedly entered Lively's makeup trailer without permission, "including when she was breastfeeding her infant child." Lively also recalled Baldoni claiming he could communicate with the dead, including her father, Ernie Lively. She found it "off-putting and violative."
The New York Times then published a report titled 'We Can Bury Anyone': Inside a Hollywood Smear Machine. The report used excerpts from alleged text messages and emails that Lively obtained through a subpoena and detailed the work of crisis management firm TAG PR for Baldoni, including allegedly planting negative stories in the media.
Baldoni's camp has called the accusations in the report "categorically false."
Later, Baldoni's camp released a series of video takes during the production of It Ends with Us in an attempt to debunk Lively's sexual harassment allegations against him. Lively and Reynolds, in turn, requested a gag order.
On Feb. 3, Baldoni launched a website containing two documents: his $400 million 224-page amended complaint against Lively and Reynolds and a 168-page "timeline of relevant events," which included a compilation of screenshots as an additional exhibit to his amended complaint. It came two days before their first court hearing.
