Taylor Swift dragged into Lively-Baldoni legal fight

Taylor Swift has been unexpectedly pulled into a heated legal dispute between actor-director Justin Baldoni and actress Blake Lively.

The conflict, which stems from the film It Ends With Us, has escalated into a lawsuit and counter-lawsuit involving sexual harassment, defamation, and accusations of civil extortion. Swift’s representatives say her name is being invoked “to draw public interest by creating tabloid clickbait instead of focusing on the facts of the case.”

At the heart of the case is a 2023 meeting at Lively’s New York residence, where Baldoni claims he was invited to discuss script revisions. According to Baldoni, he was caught off guard when Lively’s husband, Ryan Reynolds, and Swift were also present. He alleges Lively referred to them as her “dragons,” referencing a text she sent saying, “If you ever get around to watching Game of Thrones, you'll appreciate that I'm Khaleesi, and like her, I happen to have a few dragons.”

Baldoni says he responded warmly to the script changes, texting Lively, “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).”

Lively filed a sexual harassment lawsuit against Baldoni in December 2024, also accusing him of launching a smear campaign. Baldoni responded with a counterclaim against both Lively and Reynolds, alleging defamation, invasion of privacy, and civil extortion.

As the legal tensions mount, Swift’s name surfaced again—this time in connection to the casting of actress Isabela Ferrer, who plays a younger version of Lively’s character. Ferrer, at the film’s New York premiere, mentioned, “She [Taylor Swift] was a helpful part of the audition, which I found out later when I got it, and that rocked my world.”

Swift’s representatives have flatly denied any involvement beyond granting the use of her song My Tears Ricochet, which appears alongside music from 19 other artists in the film. “She was not involved in any casting or creative decisions,” they said. “She never set foot on the set of this movie, she did not score the film, she never saw an edit or made any notes on the film.”

They added that Swift did not even watch It Ends With Us until several weeks after its release, citing her global tour schedule at the time.

The singer’s team insists the legal effort to summon Swift to court is simply a strategy to draw media attention, rather than a move based on any substantive involvement in the case.