A simple favor.
Blake Lively’s lead attorney, Mike Gottlieb, allegedly threatened to release Taylor Swift’s private text messages if the singer didn’t publicly support the star in her “It Ends With Us” legal battle.
Justin Baldoni’s legal team laid bare the bombshell allegations in a shocking new court filing obtained by The Post; however, Gottlieb shot down the accusations, calling them “categorically false.”
Last week, Swift was dragged into Lively’s ongoing feud with Baldoni when the superstar singer was subpoenaed as a witness in the legal war.
In a letter to the judge on Wednesday, Baldoni’s lawyers explained why they want to talk to Swift, particularly, after Lively and her husband, Ryan Reynolds, attempted to quash the subpoena.
“The Lively Defendants’ insistence that the Subpoena seeks irrelevant information is wrong,” Bryan Freedman, Baldoni’s attorney, wrote in the latest legal doc.
Freedman also claimed that he received a tip from an anonymous source who alleged that Lively “requested that Taylor Swift delete their text messages,” per the filing.
Freedman argued that the source “is highly likely to have reliable information,” which he believes could help the case.
In the legal letter, Freedman also claimed that Lively’s lawyer allegedly contacted an attorney at Venable, the firm that represents the “Bad Blood” singer, “and demanded that Ms. Swift release a statement of support for Ms. Lively,” while also “intimating that if Ms. Swift refused to do so, private text messages of a personal nature in Ms. Lively’s possession would be released.”
According to Freeman, via the filing, he was told that one of Swift’s representatives “addressed these inappropriate and apparently extortionate threats” in at least one written communication with Gottlieb.
“It is those communications that the Wayfarer Parties seek to obtain,” the letter stated, adding that alleged communication could be possible evidence of “an attempt to intimidate and coerce a percipient witness in this litigation.”
But Lively’s attorney denied Freeman’s allegations in a scathing statement to Page Six.
“This is categorically false. We unequivocally deny all of these so-called allegations, which are cowardly sourced to supposed anonymous sources, and completely untethered from reality,” Gottlieb 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. We will imminently file motions with the court to hold these attorneys accountable for their misconduct here.”
The Post reached out to Gottlieb and Swift’s rep for comment but did not immediately hear back.
Swift, who is the godmother of Lively and Reynolds’ three daughters, was brought up several times in Baldoni’s countersuit, in which he claimed the international pop diva and Reynolds were present for a pivotal meeting between him and Lively that took place at the couple’s New York penthouse.
In his countersuit, Baldoni also claimed that Lively called herself Khaleesi from “Game of Thrones” and referred to Reynolds and Swift as “my dragons” in an alleged text exchange.
The Grammy winner’s team fired off a statement shortly after the news of her subpoena made headlines.
“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 Swift representative told The Post.
Lively kicked off the legal war when she sued Baldoni in December, claiming he sexually harassed her on the set of “It Ends With Us.”
Baldoni, who served as director and the love interest of Lively’s character in the film, countersued the actress and her husband for $400 million, accusing the couple of defamation, civil extortion, false light invasion of privacy, and more.
Each party has denied the other’s allegations.
Lively and Baldoni’s trial is set for March 2026.