Taylor Swift 'did not agree' to Blake Lively, Justin Baldoni deposition
Taylor Swift's lawyer said the singer "did not agree" to a deposition in Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni's legal battle, but would participate if "forced" to do so.
According to reports by multiple international outlets, including PEOPLE Magazine and ABC News, Atty. J. Douglas Baldridge emphasized that their camp "has consistently maintained" that Swift "has no material role in this action.”
He added that Swift may answer questions in October if "forced" into a deposition.
"Further, my client did not agree to a deposition, but if she is forced into a deposition, we advised (after first hearing about the deposition just three days ago) that her schedule would accommodate the time required during the week of October 20 if the parties were able to work out their disputes," his letter to the New York federal judge.
This came after Lively's lawyer, Atty. Matthew Bruno said in his letter to the judge that Baldoni's attorneys are “grossly irresponsible to delay scheduling the deposition of a witness of this kind until the last minute.”
Bruno said that questioning Swift in late October and any delays after could affect the March trial date.
“We do not consent to any depositions—let alone depositions of third parties with only tangential relevance to the claims or defenses in this case—being taken weeks after the close of fact discovery,” he wrote, per ABC News.
For their part, Baldoni's legal team said that they weren’t requesting a month-long extension to interview witnesses, but only to schedule Swift’s deposition between Oct. 20 and 25, citing her prior professional commitments.
Ongoing legal battle
Lively filed a sexual harassment complaint against Baldoni and Jamey Heath of Wayfarer Studios, the producer of It Ends with Us, accusing them of running a smear campaign against her.
In her complaint, Lively accused Baldoni and Heath of telling her about their past sexual relationships and "previous porn addiction." Heath also allegedly showed Lively a video of his wife naked and giving birth. Baldoni and Heath likewise supposedly entered Lively's makeup trailer without permission, "including when she was breastfeeding her infant child." Lively also recalled Baldoni claiming he could communicate with the dead, including her father, Ernie Lively. She found it "off-putting and violative."
The New York Times later published a report on Dec. 21, 2024 titled 'We Can Bury Anyone': Inside a Hollywood Smear Machine, which used excerpts from alleged text messages and emails that Lively obtained through a subpoena and detailed the work of crisis management firm TAG PR for Baldoni, including allegedly planting negative stories in the media.
In response, Baldoni's camp has called the accusations in the report "categorically false." They later released a series of video takes during the production of It Ends with Us in an attempt to debunk Lively's sexual harassment allegations, which prompted Lively and her husband, Ryan Reynolds, to request a gag order.
On Feb. 3, Baldoni launched a website containing two documents: his $400 million 224-page amended complaint against Lively and Reynolds and a 168-page "timeline of relevant events," which included a compilation of screenshots as an additional exhibit to his amended complaint. It came two days before their first court hearing.
In June, Judge J. Lewis Liman dismissed some cases filed by Baldoni, which involved a $400 million (P22 billion) countersuit accusing Lively, Ryan Reynolds, and their publicist of extortion and defamation, and a $250 million (P13.9 billion) libel lawsuit against The New York Times over its Dec. 21, 2024, article.
According to the judge, Lively's statements to a California state agency regarding Baldoni's alleged harassment during filming were protected and could not be used as the basis for Baldoni and Wayfarer Studios' defamation claim.
The trial for the Lively v. Wayfarer Studios et al. case is slated for March 2026.