Things keep getting more complicated for Taylor Swift in the ongoing—and very public—legal battle between friend and actress Blake Lively and producer Justin Baldoni.
Swift, who’s been keeping a low profile in recent months as she and boyfriend, Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce, avoid the spotlight during the NFL offseason, was recently served with a subpoena by Baldoni’s lawyer Bryan Freedman in his $400 million lawsuit against Lively for defamation, civil extortion, and creating a smear campaign against him.
Kelce and Swift have kept their distance from Lively and husband Ryan Reynolds — the two were not invited to Swift’s Super Bowl suite back in February despite sitting with her the previous year at Super Bowl LVIII — and many believe Kelce recently unfollowed Reynolds on Instagram in case he’s subpoenaed in the case too.
And while Swift likely expected to be subpoenaed for a while after Baldoni dragged her into the case because of her relationship with Lively, a new report from the Daily Mail, which called the legal drama a “tragic and surely unrecoverable end to a friendship that has spanned a decade,” indicates that Swift blames Lively for her “unwanted involvement.”
Recording artist Taylor Swift and actress Blake Lively attend Super Bowl LVIII between the Kansas City Chiefs and the San Francisco 49ers at Allegiant Stadium.Mark J. Rebilas-Imagn Images
“Taylor has been aware that Blake has been exploiting her name for a while now, but this subpoena takes it to a whole new level,” a source told the Daily Mail.
Swift was pulled into the legal drama after Baldoni included texts from Lively in his lawsuit that referred to Swift as one of her “dragons,” suggesting she used the pop star’s influence and celebrity status to manipulate him during the filming of certain scenes in their movie “It Ends With Us.”
Swift was served a subpoena last week, which both her representation and Lively’s attorney believe is nothing more than an attention-grab.
“The connection Taylor had to this film was permitting the use of one song, ‘My Tears Ricochet,’” a Swift spokesperson said in a statement. “Given that her involvement was licensing a song for the film, which 19 other artists also did, this document subpoena is designed to use Taylor Swift’s name to draw public interest by creating tabloid clickbait instead of focusing on the facts of the case.”
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