When Blake Lively felt like filming for It Ends With Us was going off the rails, she turned to her best friend Taylor Swift for support as she clashed with director and co-star Justin Baldoni.
And newly released private messages reveal that may have ruined their friendship.
“I feel like I’m reading a bunch of corporate emails sent to 200 employees,” Swift told Lively in December 2024, after apparently incessantly complaining about the situation with Baldoni, which escalated into a shocking lawsuit weeks later.
Lively, 38, accused Baldoni of sexual harassment, infliction of emotional distress and invasion of privacy. (Baldoni denies these claims.)
The messages, some of which sounded like mean-girl letters, were made public Tuesday in an unsealed court deposition that claims they were exchanged between Lively and Swift.
The film began filming in May 2023, four years after Baldoni, now 41, chose to adapt Colleen Hoover’s hit novel. But it seems Lively was already irritated with him before the cameras started rolling.
“If this stupid director of my movie is still here (I’ll guide him, but I hope he’s still here), could you please do me a big favor? I need help with him,” Lively wrote to Swift in an April 12, 2023, text exchange.
According to new court documents, Ms. Swift, 36, was chosen to be a cheerleader in the revised version of “Love Ends” without having read the script during a meeting with Ms. Baldoni at the Tribeca home she shares with husband Ryan Reynolds.
“I would do anything for you!!” said Swift, who is godmother to the couple’s daughters.
Lively then praised Baldoni and again disparaged Baldoni, saying, “You were really heroic today. You’re making fun of me, you’re making fun of the lens, you’re making fun of me, you’re calling yourself my doll. This clown is into everything… You’re the absolute best friend in the world.”
According to Baldoni’s defamation countersuit (which was ultimately dismissed), Baldoni told Lively that he liked her rewrite and would have done it even if she hadn’t asked for Swift and Reynolds’ cooperation.
“If you ever get a chance to watch Game of Thrones, you’ll understand that I’m a Khaleesi. Like her, I also happen to have a few dragons. For better or for worse, usually for the better…” she texted him, according to Baldoni’s legal filing.
By April, Swift had solidified her support for Lively. When the two exchanged messages about using Swift’s song “My Tears Ricochet” in the movie’s trailer, Swift wrote, “If Justin was being strategic, he wouldn’t be Taylor Swift in the trailer because that would give him more power over the movie. It’s on your side, not on his side.”
Before the film’s August 2024 release, multiple sources told Page Six that director Baldoni “made Lively feel uncomfortable” on set. The two avoided each other at the Manhattan premiere.
Meanwhile, Lively is planning to take action against her co-star soon, and that seems to have been her main topic of conversation.
In a tense exchange between Swift and Lively on Dec. 4, 2024, revealed in new court documents, the actress wrote:
“Hey, I just checked in. There’s no reason to ask, but no, I just feel like I should… are you okay? I’ve been feeling like a bad friend lately because you’ve been such a sad piece of shit who only talks about yourself for months.”
Lively told the “Lover” singer that she felt “something could be different.”
Swift responded, “No, you’re not wrong, but it’s not a big deal,” noting that she had noticed “a little change” in their friendship.
“Yes, there was a lot about Justin, but I’ve been through something like this before and I know how draining it can be,” Swift said. “It’s more like…I really regret saying anything about this, because your intentions were very good.But the last few emails…I felt like I was reading a mass corporate email sent to 200 employees.”
Swift claimed that Lively was not acting like the friend she once knew.
“You said the word ‘we’ 18 times. And as much as it feels awful to be judgmental in any way about how I process what I’ve been through, I kind of miss my funny, dark, normally speaking friends who speak to me as themselves and not as someone like me. Plural,” Swift wrote, who was finishing up a 21-month Elas tour at the time.
“When I’m listening to a group of people, it feels like they’re even further away than just geographically.”
Lively responded jokingly:
“Dear valued customer, thank you for your feedback. Our corporate office is reviewing your concerns and will contact you in a timely manner.”
The actress filed a complaint with the California Department of Civil Rights on December 20, 2024, detailing allegations of sexual harassment, a “smear campaign” and creating a hostile work environment during the production of the film. Ten days later, she filed a lawsuit against Mr. Baldoni and others, including his publicist and production company.
Baldoni’s lawyers issued a statement detailing “multiple demands and threats made by Ms. Lively during production, including threatening not to come to set and threatening not to promote the film if her demands were not met.”
(In new court documents, Andrea Giannetti, executive vice president of production at Sony Pictures, which distributed the film, acknowledged that she called Lively a “fucking terrorist” after she threatened to quit Seraph of the End unless she addressed her concerns.)
On Dec. 24, Swift allegedly texted Lively about Baldoni: “I think this bitch knows something is going to happen because she pulled out a little violin.”
Ten days later, Ms. Lively filed a lawsuit against Mr. Baldoni and others, including his publicist and production company. This lawsuit and the civil rights lawsuit are still ongoing.
Representatives for Lively, Swift and Baldoni did not immediately respond to Page Six’s requests for comment.
Lively and Swift have been friends since 2015 and were frequently photographed together, but they haven’t been seen in public since August 2024. Page Six previously reported that the two have not been in contact since shortly after the lawsuit was filed.
