Taylor Swift subpoenaed by Justin Baldoni's lawyer in alleged sexual harassment suit

Los Angeles, May 10 (IANS) Singer-songwriter Taylor Swift has come into the picture with regards to the legal battle between actor-director Justin Baldoni and actress Blake Lively amid the aftermath of the film ‘It Ends With Us’.

The singer has been subpoenaed by Baldoni’s lawyer. A spokesperson for Swift denied any involvement with the film in a statement beyond licensing her song ‘My Tears Ricochet’ to be used in the trailer and a scene, reports ‘Variety’.

The spokesperson said, “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”.

As per ‘Variety’, Swift’s subpoena relates to Baldoni’s defamation lawsuit filed in January, which included text messages between Lively and Baldoni, her co-star and director, in which the former appears to allude to Swift as “one of her dragons”.

In the suit, filed against Lively and her husband Ryan Reynolds for $400 million, Baldoni alleged that the couple hijacked the film and sought to destroy his public reputation with false allegations and sexual harassment.

While Swift was not named in the suit, her first name appears in a text message Baldoni sent to Lively and is believed to be the “megacelebrity friend” referenced in the filing. The texts concern a rooftop scene in the film that Lively had allegedly reworked in the script. The suit states that Lively summoned Baldoni to her penthouse in New York where Reynolds and the “megacelebrity friend” praised Lively’s version of the scene.

Baldoni’s lawyers stated that he “felt obliged to text Lively to say that he had liked her pages and hadn’t needed Reynolds and her megacelebrity friend to pressure him”.

“Also was working on rooftop scene today, I really love what you did. It really does (help) a lot”, wrote Baldoni in the text message. “Makes it so much more fun and interesting. (And I would have felt that way without Ryan and Taylor) You really are a talent across the board. Really excited (and) grateful to do this together”.

Later, Lively sent a text that referred to Reynolds and another person whose name is redacted as “absolute titans as writers and storytellers outside of their primary gig”. She also compared herself to Khaleesi, the dragon-controlling queen on ‘Game of Thrones’.

--IANS

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