The Justin Baldoni and Blake Lively battle over what went down on It Ends With Us and the alleged astroturfing that followed is starting to seem to look a lot like the Sean “Diddy” Combs and Cassie Ventura case, at least in terms of tactics and texts.
In a shocking letter today to the federal judge overseeing the $400 million and more lawsuits between the IEWU stars, Ryan Reynolds, The New York Times, various PR firms, and Baldoni’s Wayfarer Studios, the Jane the Virgin alum’s main lawyer accuses Lively of threatening to shame her ‘Fortnight’ pal unless Swift publicly offers strong support. A claim that Lively and Reynolds’ lawyer Micheal Gottieb initially said was “completely false.” Now another lawyer for the Another Simple Favor star is calling an attempt by Bryan Freedman “to launder scandalous and defamatory allegations about Ms. Lively and opposing counsel into the press.”
In a blistering letter of their own just filed with the court and Judge Lewis J. Liman, Lively and Reynolds’ Willkie Farr & Gallagher and Manatt, Phelps & Phillips attorney want the correspondence from the pugilistic Freedman struck from the docket — and that might not be the end of it.
“On behalf of our client, Blake Lively, we respectfully move to strike the letter signed by Mr. Bryan Freedman and filed earlier today,” Manatt’s Esra Hudson exclaims. “That letter, which was not filed with any evidentiary support of any kind, much less anything under oath, falsely accuses Ms. Lively, and her counsel, of engaging in ‘witness tampering and evidence spoliation’ based on an undisclosed anonymous source,” Hudson continues, after Freedman and his Baldoni crew have owned the media with Swift and Lively catfight stories for the past two hours.
“It should be unnecessary to respond to anonymously sourced, baseless, allegations recklessly leveled without any supporting evidence,” the sanctions-threatening letter adds. It is worth stating for the record, however, that each of the allegations in the Freedman Letter is unequivocally and demonstrably false.” While there has been silence from the previously subpoena-served Swift’s side amidst all this Wednesday, Lively’s lawyers remind Judge Liman of his stern February 3 warning to all sides in this high profile matter that there would be consequences if he saw the case “litigated in the press.”
Heading towards the March 9, 2026 trial start of this matter, that has only just been replaced in the headlines by Sean “Diddy” Combs’ ongoing sex-trafficking trial taking place in lower Manhattan starting this week, only fools and horses would not say this matter hasn’t been litigated in the press for ages — and I don’t mean fellow defendant the Gray Lady.
Certainly, Freedman is a skilled practitioners of legal fireworks that light up the sky and capture everyone’s attention – today more than ever as his communication with Judge Liman was picked up worldwide.
It’s not hard to see why.
Freedman’s letter in wanting the Swift subpoena enforced says: “Specifically, the Wayfarer Parties’ counsel are informed and believe, based on information from a source who is highly likely to have reliable information, that (i) Ms. Lively requested that Taylor Swift delete their text messages; (ii) Michael Gottlieb of Willkie Farr, counsel for the Lively Defendants, contacted a Venable attorney who represents Ms. Swift and demanded that Ms. Swift 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. The Wayfarer Parties’ counsel are further informed and believe that a representative of Ms. Swift addressed these inappropriate and apparently extortionate threats in at least one written communication transmitted to Mr. Gottlieb. It is those communications that the Wayfarer Parties seek to obtain by way of subpoena, as they would evidence an attempt to intimidate and coerce a percipient witness in this litigation.”
While there is so far no actual evidence of Lively strong arming one of her supposed best and most famous friends in the very manner Diddy is accused of in his criminal case, the fact is IEWU soundtrack contributor Swift has been on the periphery of this multi-million dollar and reputation defining case almost from the jump. Not mentioned when Lively on December 20 filed a sexual harassment and retaliation complaint against Lively, his Wayfarer Studios, execs, and PR chiefs Melissa Nathan and Jennifer Abel with California’s Civil Rights Department. Swift was all but named dropped by Lively as one of her “Dragons,” along with hubby and Deadpool star Reynolds, in texts that were released by both sides in the IEWU dispute. In no small gesture at the top of fame and cultural real power last summer, Swift also provided her pal’s edit of the Sony distributed and Baldoni directed domestic violence themed film with some superstar juice with her “My Tears Ricochet” tune.
Managing to directly stay out the Lively-Baldoni fray (though not the tabloids’ speculations of the state of Lively-Swift friendship) until recently, the controversy adverse Swift was quick to slap down the subpoena Baldoni’s team served on her at the beginning of this month. “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,” the Eras Tour performer’s spokesperson told Deadline on May 9.
When this is all said and done, after the trial is finished, someone is going to be left with quite the reputation, and I don’t mean Swift’s 2017 album.
