Taylor Swift is reportedly distancing herself from bestie Blake Lively after being referenced in Justin Baldoni’s $400 million lawsuit against the actress.
According to TMZ insiders, the pop superstar feels her longtime friend manipulated her and leveraged her fame to gain an upper hand on Baldoni amid feuding while making their film “It Ends With Us.”
Lively sued Baldoni in December, accusing the actor-director of 𝓈ℯ𝓍ual harassment on the set and a retaliatory smear campaign. Baldoni countersued weeks later, accusing Lively, her husband Ryan Reynolds and publicist Leslie Sloane of defamation and civil extortion.
Among the many allegations in his filing, Baldoni refers to a heated meeting at Lively’s New York City penthouse where they allegedly argued over rewrites to the script. Baldoni says Swift walked in unexpectedly toward the end of the meeting and sang Lively’s praises — a move he believes was orchestrated to put pressure on him to “comply” with Lively’s demands.
Subsequent text messages included in the filing show Lively referred to the Grammy winner as one of her “dragons.” Baldoni interpreted the text to be a veiled threat that she’d unleash the star power of her “gorgeous monsters” if he didn’t oblige.
“It’s weird to say that about a friend,” a source told TMZ, adding that Swift was “baffled” by the characterization.
The insider also claims Swift was unaware she’d be arriving during the meeting and only showed up “at the time Blake told her to, not knowing anyone else would be there,” the outlet reported.
The source said that since getting pulled into the legal drama, Swift has found out about other times Lively has inappropriately leveraged her name.
A second source who’s reportedly close to the situation said Swift was ticked off about getting dragged into the mess — and the “dragons” remark in particular — but the friends made up after Lively apologized.
A source close to Lively meanwhile maintains the relationship is “not strained.”
Representatives for Swift and Lively did not immediately respond to a Daily News’ request for comment.
News of an alleged rift comes one day after Baldoni’s lawyer said he was considering calling for Swift to be deposed, given that she was at the meeting and could have information that would be helpful in the case.
“I don’t know that we’re going to depose Taylor Swift or not. I think that’s probably going to be a game-time decision,” attorney Bryan Freedman told TMZ on Wednesday’s episode of the “Two Angry Men” podcast. “I can tell you this: Anybody that reasonably has information that can provide evidence in this case is going to be deposed.”
A trial for both lawsuits is currently scheduled to begin March 9, 2026.
