Taylor Swift’s Ties to Blake Lively’s and Justin Baldoni’s It Ends With Us Lawsuits, Explained
Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni’s legal drama has taken a major turn as the It Ends With Us director’s team homes in on Taylor Swift.
Though Swift would clearly like to be excluded from this narrative, the pop star’s name has been linked to the Colleen Hoover film adaptation since before Lively and Baldoni’s contentious legal battle began, starting with the use of her song “My Tears Ricochet” in a promotional trailer back in May 2024. The song eventually made its way into the final cut of It Ends With Us, though Baldoni’s legal team alleges Swift’s music is not her only link to the production.
As Swift’s and Lively’s own legal teams fight Baldoni’s attempt to subpoena the pop star, his legal team has levied a new bombshell allegation against his former costar. According to Baldoni’s lawyers, the subpoena seeks to uncover evidence that Lively threatened the pop star, promising to release private text messages if Swift did not release a statement in support of her longtime friend. Lively’s attorney’s call this accusation “categorically false” and “completely untethered from reality.”
So, how did we get here? Here’s what we know about Baldoni’s claims and Swift’s so-called involvement in the film, via a comprehensive timeline. (For a more in-depth timeline of the film and subsequent lawsuits, click here. This article will only explore the aspects that pertain to Swift with some additional context.)
May 14 and 15, 2025: A lot happens over these two days, so let’s go through it from beginning to end.
On May 14, Baldoni’s lawyer, Bryan Freedman, sent a letter to the court in which he claimed to have received a tip that Lively’s attorney contacted Swift’s attorney and “demanded that Ms. Swift release a statement of support for Ms. Lively” and “intimating that if Ms. Swift refused to do so, private text messages of a personal nature in Ms. Lively’s possession would be released.”
Freedman claimed the tip came from a “source who is highly likely to have reliable information.”
In response, Lively’s lawyer Michael Gottlieb released the following statement to People:
“This is categorically false. We unequivocally deny all of these so-called allegations, which are cowardly sourced to supposed anonymous sources, and completely untethered from reality. This is what we have come to expect from the Wayfarer parties’ lawyers, who appear to love nothing more than shooting first, without any evidence, and with no care for the people they are harming in the process. We will imminently file motions with the court to hold these attorneys accountable for their misconduct here.”
Meanwhile, Lively’s legal team officially requested Freedman’s letter to be tossed out, writing, “The apparent intent of the Freedman Letter is to launder scandalous and defamatory allegations about Ms. Lively and opposing counsel into the press by abusing the Court’s docket.”
According to People, Freedman then filed a signed affidavit on May 15 under the penalty of perjury, claiming he had an hour-long phone call with a “person very closely linked to Taylor Swift” on February 14. According to Freedman, the source shared the details of a conversation between Lively’s and Swift’s legal teams.
Per the affidavit, Lively’s lawyer allegedly “requested, on Ms. Lively’s behalf, that Taylor Swift make a social media statement in support of Ms. Lively given her absence from the Super Bowl that year, and stated that if Ms. Swift failed to do so, Ms. Lively would release ‘10 years’ of private texts with Ms. Swift.”
The alleged source also claimed Swift was allegedly asked to delete their text messages from the past “four or five months.”
Lively’s lawyer, Gottlieb, described the affidavit as “another bogus filing designed for clickbait” in a statement to People, adding, “We reiterate our unequivocal denial.” Furthermore, Gottlieb said Freedman has now “admitted” his allegations “rely completely upon a source, no matter who it is, that doesn’t even claim to have witnessed the conversations that Freedman describes, making this triple-hearsay statement as unreliable as information reported from children in a game of telephone.”
Gottlieb continued, “These claims remain completely untethered from reality—to be clear: The conversations as described did not happen, and we will hold Mr. Freedman accountable for his misconduct.”
According to People, the judge granted Lively’s motion to strike Freedman’s letter and affidavit, calling them “improper” and “irrelevant to any issue before this Court.”
May 12 and 13, 2025: Swift’s law firm, Venable, asks for the courts to throw out another subpoena requesting all communications between the firm and Lively, Reynolds and/or their lawyer Michael Gottlieb, per Billboard.
“Venable had nothing to do with the film at issue or any of the claims or defenses asserted in the underlying lawsuit,” the firm wrote in the motion, per Billboard. “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 also called the subpoena a “fishing expedition” and an “abuse of the discovery process,” noting Baldoni’s team should seek any alleged documents straight from Lively and Reynolds.
May 9, 2025: TMZ reports that Baldoni’s team has subpoenaed Taylor Swift to testify during the trial. Swift’s team responded with the following statement:
“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, 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. 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.”
Lively’s team also slammed the subpoena in a statement, per People:
“Mr. Baldoni, Mr. [Steve] Sarowitz, and team continue to turn a case of sexual harassment and retaliation into entertainment for the tabloids, going as far as suggesting that they sell tickets to a concert venue— Madison Square Garden—to witness Ms. Lively’s deposition, to subpoenaing Taylor Swift, a woman who has given a voice to millions all over the world. This is a very serious legal matter, not Barnum & Bailey’s Circus.”
April 28, 2025: Linking to a since deleted Reddit thread, Page Six reports that Swift’s boyfriend Travis Kelce unfollowed Ryan Reynolds on Instagram, later citing the It Ends With Us drama as Kelce’s alleged motivation.
February 14, 2025: Freedman allegedly has a phone call with a “person very closely linked to Taylor Swift” about a conversation between Lively’s lawyer and Swift’s lawyer.
February 9, 2025: Unlike last year, Blake Lively does not attend the Super Bowl with Taylor Swift.
January 31, 2025: In new court documents posted online, Baldoni claims Lively “made a veiled threat” to a Sony executive that she “might ‘change her mind’ about reaching out to Taylor Swift to secure the use of ‘My Tears Ricochet’ for the trailer” if her post-production demands were not met, including tactics to secure creative control of the film.
“This maneuver felt less like a professional request and more like extortion,” Baldoni’s filing read, per E! News. “Holding the film’s marketing efforts hostage to gain creative control.”
January 16, 2025: Baldoni countersues Lively and Ryan Reynolds for $400 million, alleging defamation and extortion.
At the time, many suspected Swift is the “megacelebrity friend” mentioned in his 179-page complaint. According to Baldoni’s complaint, the famous friend arrived at Lively and Reynolds’s home at the end of a meeting about the film’s pivotal rooftop scene during preproduction, praising a version that was written by Lively. “Baldoni understood the subtext: he needed to comply with Lively’s direction for the script,” the document claims.
Though the celebrity’s name was redacted throughout the court documents, Baldoni mentioned a “Taylor” in one alleged text message about the scene sent on August 14, 2023, writing, “I really love what you did. It really does help a lot. Makes it so much more fun and interesting. (And I would have felt that way without Ryan and Taylor) 😉 You really are a talent across the board. Really excited and grateful to do this together.”
In a series of texts Lively allegedly sent to Baldoni on August 15, she referred to her “most trusted partners” as her “dragons” in reference to Game of Thrones. “If you ever get around to watching Game of Thrones, you’ll appreciate that I’m Khaleesi,” Lively allegedly wrote to Baldoni. “And like her, I happen to have a few dragons. For better or worse, but usually for better, because my dragons also protect those I fight for. So really, we all benefit from those gorgeous monsters of mine. 😆 you will too. I can promise you.”
December 31, 2024: Blake Lively officially files a lawsuit in New York, while Baldoni sues the Times.
December 21, 2024: TMZ reports that Lively has filed a lawsuit against Baldoni for sexual harassment, also accusing the director of embarking on a “social manipulation” campaign to “destroy” her reputation. The New York Times also publishes its bombshell report about Lively’s complaint.
August 24, 2025: As Lively faces online criticism for the film’s promotional strategy and fans questioned Baldoni’s absence from cast interviews and photo opps, Swift hosts Lively and Reynolds at her famous Rhode Island estate.
August 12, 2024: Once again, Lively tells CBS Mornings that Sony put Swift’s song in the trailer and discussed adding it to the movie. “She was with me throughout this whole process,” Lively said of Swift. “I think, for better or worse, she experienced the whole thing with me.”
August 9, 2024: The movie premieres.
August 7, 2024: Access Hollywood releases an interview with Justin Baldoni about casting the film. During the interview Baldoni claims Lively and Swift helped choose Isabella Ferrer to play a younger version of Lily Bloom. “I was casting, and I had actually brought in and showed her casting tape to Blake and Taylor, and they were both like: ‘Yes, her,’ that’s a true story,” he said.
Ferrer echoed that statement at the premiere, telling Extra, “I don’t even know if I’m meant to be saying it, but yeah, [Swift] was a helpful part of the process, of the audition. I found out later, after I got it, and that rocks my world. I have no words.”
That same day Lively is asked, in a red-carpet interview with The Hollywood Reporter during the It Ends With Us premiere, about choosing Swift’s song. “All of her songs are great, we could have put any song up there,” Lively replied. “We could have done like a voice-memo song, it would have been the best song to have ever been in a movie.”
August 6, 2024: In an interview with Etalk, Lively claims Sony chose “My Tears Ricochet” for the It Ends With Us trailer, which led her to decide to include the song in the film. “I have to give credit to Sony, who cut this trailer. They picked that song of all the songs,” Lively said at the time. “At that point, her music wasn’t in the movie yet. Once we saw it in the trailer and once we saw what it meant to people and what it meant to us, I was like, ‘I gotta put this song in the movie.’”
August 5, 2024: Blake Lively opens up about getting Swift to sign off on the song in the movie during a panel. “I mean, honestly, she was with me on this experience the whole time, all throughout it, so she really lived this with me,” Lively said of Swift. “She’s a person who shows up for you, and I’m so grateful to have that love and support.”
July 25, 2024: Swift seems to confirm her role as godmother to Lively and Ryan Reynolds’s children while supporting Reynolds’s film Deadpool vs. Wolverine.
May 19, 2024: Baldoni seemingly credits Lively (who is an executive producer on the film) with getting the song put in the movie, telling The Hollywood Reporter, “I take no credit for that, I’m sure that was all Blake.”
May 16, 2024: Swift’s Folklore track “My Tears Ricochet” is used in a promotional trailer for It Ends With Us. The song would later be featured in the final cut of the film.
February 11, 2024: Blake Lively attends the Super Bowl with Swift. This will be important later.
2015: Swift’s friendship with Lively has been heavily documented since at least December 2015, when the pair hard-launched their BFF status after a visit to the Queensland theme park in Australia.
This article may be updated.
