Justin Baldoni‘s legal team has been absolutely slammed by a judge after filing a legal letter which claimed that Blake Lively was trying to force Taylor Swift to support her publicly amidst the It Ends With Us star’s legal battle.
In case you missed it, Swift was officially dragged into the ongoing legal case last week after she was served a subpoena by Baldoni’s lawyers. The court was also given an affidavit (or legal letter) from Baldoni’s lawyer Bryan Freedman, which alleged that Lively essentially threatened Swift to publicly support her in the media or she’d release “10 years of private texts”.
As you’d expect, Lively’s team didn’t take too kindly to the implications that the Gossip Girl star essentially blackmailed her pop star friend, so they requested that the letter be struck from the record. Now, a judge has granted this request — and given Baldoni and his team a pretty scathing talking to.
Judge Lewis J. Liman granted the motion of dismissal on Friday (local time), referring to Freedman’s letter as “improper”.
“The sole purpose of the Letter is to ‘promote public scandal’ by advancing inflammatory accusations, on information and belief, against Lively and her counsel,” he said during the filing.
“It transparently invites a press uproar by suggesting that Lively and her counsel attempted to ‘extort’ a well-known celebrity.”
Liman also noted that the filing was “no use” to the court. Instead, it was more like a “reservoir of libellous statements for press consumption”.
The judge concluded his statement by essentially warning Freedman not to pull a stunt like this again. Or, in more legal terms: “future misuse of the court’s docket may be met with sanctions”.
Ouchie mama!!!!
Following the ruling, a spokesperson for Lively made a statement slamming the letter and Baldoni’s legal team.
“It took the court less than 24 hours to see through Mr. Freedman’s irrelevant, improper and inflammatory accusations, strike them, remove them from the court and warn Mr. Freedman that further misconduct may be met with sanctions,” they said, per E! News.
Gottlieb had previously told PEOPLE that the allegations were “categorically false”.
“We unequivocally deny all of these so-called allegations, which are cowardly sourced to supposed anonymous sources, and completely untethered from reality,” he said.
“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.”
The kerfuffle has caused Taylor Swift’s team to make a statement, too.
Speaking to PEOPLE, the Reputation singer’s team denied any involvement in It Ends With Us.
“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 spokesperson said.
“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.”
Although it feels like this court case has already been going on for a lifetime, we’ve still got a while to go before the Lively v. Wayfarer Studios et al. case is set to go before a judge and jury in March 2026.
Buckle up, it’s going to be a tough slog.
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