Blake Lively has suffered another setback in her epic legal battle with Justin Baldoni, the Daily Mail has exclusively learned.
Lawyers for the actress, 37, had applied for a protective order covering her communications with erstwhile bestie Taylor Swift – but today, that move was unceremoniously denied by a New York judge.
Baldoni’s team are in the discovery phase of the blockbuster legal case and have subpoenaed Lively for texts, emails and other messages between her and the singer – who she infamously referred to as ‘my dragon’ during an exchange allegedly intended to intimidate the Jane the Virgin star.
But while Baldoni’s team were forced to withdraw a subpoena targeting megastar Swift directly, they scored a victory today when Judge Lewis J Liman said they will be allowed access to Lively’s communications with the singer.
Baldoni’s lawyers will now be allowed to peruse a tranche of messages exchanged by the pair with all communications related to It Ends With Us now set for scrutiny.
The Daily Mail has contacted Lively’s team for comment.
Swift and Lively’s relationship has cratered in recent months, with the singer left furious at being dragged into the case.
And she is not the only Swift to be dragged in: last week the Daily Mail revealed the subpoena against her had been withdrawn because Baldoni’s team had managed to acquire the information they were seeking – from none other than her dad Scott, 73.
‘Scott Swift did not want his daughter to be dragged into this any further and he voluntarily gave up this information as part of a deal that would include [Baldoni’s team] withdrawing their subpoena for Taylor,’ the source explained.
The pop star’s doting dad – who has played a key role in building Swift’s billion-dollar empire as her financial advisor – came to his daughter’s rescue after she was allegedly blackmailed by Lively’s lawyers.
That ‘blackmail’ revelation appeared in a legal letter filed last month by Baldoni’s lawyers, who alleged that Lively’s team had attempted to ‘coerce’ Swift to issue a public statement in support of her.
The filing claimed Lively’s lawyer, Michael Gottlieb, had contacted Swift’s team and demanded she ‘release a statement of support for Ms. Lively, intimating that, if Ms. Swift refused to do so, private text messages of a personal nature in Ms. Lively’s possession would be released.’
Swift’s team allegedly responded to Gossip Girl star Lively’s ‘inappropriate and apparently extortionate threats in at least one written communication’ sent to Gottlieb, according to the letter.
‘It is those communications that [Baldoni’s team] seeks to obtain by way of subpoena, as they would evidence an attempt to intimidate and coerce a percipient witness in this litigation,’ the letter stated.
Scott seemingly didn’t take this alleged attempt to extort his 35-year-old daughter lightly, and decided to take matters into his own hands by cooperating with Baldoni and Bryan Freedman in order to protect Swift from any further legal involvement.
‘Plain and simple – they tried to extort Taylor by threatening to release private information about her so that she would support a narrative that she was not a part of,’ our source added.
In a statement to People magazine, Gottlieb described the suggestion that Lively’s lawyers had threatened Swift as ‘categorically false.’
Lively’s lawyers later filed a motion asking the court to strike the accusations from its docket as ‘baseless, unnecessary, improper and abusive.’ The motion to dismiss the letter was granted.
However, the drama sheds further light on the collapse of the pair’s close friendship, which has gone cold amid the actress’s high-stakes lawsuit.
The drama began last December when Lively, 37, accused Baldoni, her It Ends With Us co-star and director, of sexual harassment and coordinating a smear campaign against her.
Baldoni, 41, hit back in January, with a $400 million countersuit accusing Lively and her husband Ryan Reynolds, 48, of defamation.
All parties have denied the allegations. Last week, the defamation element of Baldoni’s lawsuit was scrapped by a judge, although he is still suing for civil extortion and invasion of privacy among other claims.
But contained in Baldoni’s filing were screenshots of alleged text messages, in which Lively regularly mentioned Swift by name.
In one now infamous and toe-curling exchange, Lively appeared to refer to herself as the character Khaleesi – from Game of Thrones – and to Swift as one of her ‘dragons.’
Elsewhere in Baldoni’s filing is the claim that Swift was present at a meeting convened by Lively at her New York penthouse to discuss It Ends With Us script changes.
Sources close to Swift insisted the singer had no knowledge of the meeting and simply turned up to find it underway.
Nonetheless, the whole furor reportedly left Swift – who is godmother to Lively’s three daughters – feeling ‘exploited’ by her pal of ten years.
Scott, a former stockbroker and financial advisor for Merrill Lynch, has long been credited as smoothing his daughter’s path to financial success.
A disclosure with the Securities and Exchange Commission lists him as linked to 10 companies affiliated with his daughter, according to Bloomberg.
Last year, he was accused of assaulting a photographer who was ‘waiting’ for Swift’s arrival off a luxury yacht in Sydney following the Australian leg of her Eras Tour.
In a statement to Daily Mail Australia at the time, a rep for Swift described the photographers as ‘aggressive’ and her father later avoided charges.
Scott isn’t the only member of Swift’s inner circle to defend the pop star amid the legal drama.
Her boyfriend, NFL star Travis Kelce, recently unfollowed Ryan Reynolds on Instagram while supermodel Gigi Hadid, another of Swift’s closest friends, has reportedly ‘iced out’ Lively in solidarity.
In a statement released to the Daily Mail, a spokesman for Lively accused Baldoni’s lawyers of repeatedly attempting to drag Swift into the case and attempting to ‘exploit’ her popularity.
It continued: ‘The Court outright denied the Wayfarer Parties’ motion to compel documents from Ms. Lively, who has produced far more documents in this case than the Wayfarer Parties combined.
‘Further, the Court’s protective order ruling rests on the Wayfarer Parties’ admission that they received nothing from Taylor Swift, which is exactly the opposite of what their ‘insider’ claimed two weeks ago.
As for the rest, Justin Baldoni and the Wayfarer parties demanded access to Taylor Swift’s private communications—despite having already subpoenaed and then withdrawn that subpoena.
Baldoni’s desire to drag Taylor Swift into this has been constant dating back to August 2024, when the crisis PR firm led by Melissa Nathan included her in their ‘Scenario Planning’ document (Lively Amended Complaint, Exhibit D), referred to her as a bully, and called for a strategy to influence the ‘TS fan base’.
We will continue to call out Baldoni’s relentless efforts to exploit Ms Swift’s 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.
