A New York judge allowed Justin Baldoni’s lawyers to obtain messages between Blake Lively and Taylor Swift during the evidence collection process, since he ruled that they were “relevant” for the legal battle between the filmmaker and the actress.
Lively had presented a motion last week to prevent Baldoni from obtaining his text messages and other communications with the pop superstar, arguing that the “continuous approach to his legal team in Miss Swift (was) a media strategy, not a litigation strategy” that purely intended to generate holders instead of deepening his understanding of the case.
However, the US district judge Lewis Liman considered Wednesday that Lively conversations with Swift were relevant to the case, since the actress herself had identified the pop star as someone with probable knowledge and information about working conditions on the sets of Break the circle.
“Lively herself has identified Swift as someone likely to have knowledge about complaints or discussions related to the work environment in the set of Break the circle”, The judge ruled.
“Lively alleges that Baldoni and Heath harassed her in numerous ways during the work in Break the circlethat his concerns about his behavior began ‘at the beginning of the preproduction and production process, and that he expressed these concerns in’ contemporary messages’ ”.
The sentence continues: “Since Lively has declared that Swift was aware of complaints or discussions about the work environment in the film, among other issues, the requests for messages with Swift in relation to the film and this legal action are reasonably justified to discover information that proves or refutes the allegations of harassment and reprisals of Lively.”
In addition, Liman issued a protection order on evidence to ensure that these messages will not be filtered to the press.
As for Lively’s allegations that Swift was only being convened as “media strategy,” they limited that “this concern does not justify that the parts of the Wayfarer case are denied the presentation of relevant evidence.”
As part of the test presentation process, Baldoni’s legal team had summoned Swift to know his exchanges with Lively. The citation was withdrawn in May after the Swift representative counterattacks saying that he had been “designed to use the name of Taylor Swift to attract public interest by creating a clickbait of tabloid instead of focusing on the facts of the case ”.
The Independent He contacted the representatives of Lively and Baldoni to obtain comments.
In May, a Swift spokesman declared The Independent That the singer’s only connection with the movie was her song ‘My Tears Ricochet’, used in the soundtrack.
The spokesman continued: “Taylor Swift never set foot on the set of this movie, it was not involved in any casting or creative decision, did not make the film score, never saw an edition or made any note about the movie; he didn’t even see Break the circle Until weeks after its public launch, and was traveling all over the world for 2023 and 2024 leading the biggest tour in history. ”
“The connection Taylor had with this movie was to allow the use of a song, ‘My Tears Ricochet,” he added.
“Since his participation was to grant a song for the film, which other 19 artists also did, this citation of documents is designed to use the name of Taylor Swift to attract public interest through the creation of a clickbait of tabloid instead of focusing on the facts of the case, ”he said.
Lively sued Baldoni and his publicists last December arguing that they had defamed her in the Internet and in the press for raising complaints of sexual harassment on the sets of the film Break the circle (2024), based on a novel written by Colleen Hoover and caused a sensation on Tiktok. The Baldoni’s counterpart, which accused her of defamed him, was dismissed last week.
The rumors of discord in the filming set began to circulate online after the actors seemed to be avoided during the promotional tour of the film.
Lively was criticized for his “lack of sensitivity” when addressing the film, since some considered that he did not deal with the subject with the right solemnity.
Before the dismissal of Baldoni’s demand, the last update of the saga occurred only a few days ago, when Lively withdrew the demands for emotional anguish.
It is believed that the decision responds to the attempts of the Baldoni legal team for accessing Lively medical records, including therapy notes and other data on their health, as part of the evidence collection process.
Translation of Sara Pignatiello
