Talk about bad blood.
Taylor Swift has been subpoenaed as a witness in the contentious legal battle between It Ends With Us costars Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni, and a representative for the pop star is slamming the maneuver as a scheme to generate “tabloid clickbait.”
“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,” a spokesperson for Swift tells Entertainment Weekly.
“The connection Taylor had to this film was permitting the use of one song, ‘My Tears Ricochet,'” the rep adds. “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.”
Sony
Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni in ‘It Ends With Us’
In other words, as Swift once said amid her feud with the rapper formerly known as Kanye West, she would very much like to be excluded from this narrative.
Representatives for Baldoni and Lively didn’t immediately respond to EW’s request for comment Friday.
The legal battle between Lively and Baldoni began in December, when Lively filed a complaint with the California Civil Rights Department accusing Baldoni — her It Ends With Us castmate and director — of sexual harassment, “disturbing” and “unprofessional” behavior on set, and orchestrating a smear campaign against her. She subsequently filed a lawsuit against Baldoni in New York federal court.
Swift was first dragged into the drama when Baldoni countersued Lively in January, seeking at least $400 million in damages. His complaint — which was also filed on behalf of his film studio, Wayfarer, and its chief executive, Jamey Heath, a producer on IEWU — alleges defamation, civil extortion, and breach of contract, among other accusations.
Swift is not named as a defendant in Baldoni’s complaint, nor mentioned by her full name. However, the Grammy-winning superstar is referred to several times as verbally supporting one of Lively’s rewrites for It Ends With Us during a meeting between Baldoni and Lively at her and husband Ryan Reynolds’ New York penthouse.
The filing claims that Baldoni’s takeaway from the alleged interaction was, “Baldoni understood the subtext: he needed to comply with Lively’s direction for the script.”
Steph Chambers/Getty
Taylor Swift and Blake Lively at the Super Bowl in 2024
Want more movie news? Sign up for Entertainment Weekly‘s free newsletter to get the latest trailers, celebrity interviews, film reviews, and more.
Swift, Lively, and Reynolds have been friends for many years, with Swift even being named godmother to the couple’s four children. Lively and Reynolds’ kids have also had cameos in Swift’s work: James, 10, is briefly heard on the Reputation track “Gorgeous,” and the three main characters mentioned in the Folklore song “Betty” are named after the couple’s daughters, James, Betty, and Inez.
Lively and Baldoni’s dueling lawsuits are scheduled to go to trial in March.
Read the original article on Entertainment Weekly
