Nevertheless, Baldoni and his Wayfarer Studios team continued to make more and more outlandish legal claims, like the fact that Lively supposedly tried to extort Swift into publicly supporting her amid the drama. But Swift didn’t publicly get involved in the feud, so again, it was really just Baldoni bringing her into the mess. Even a judge agreed, last week ruling to strike the extortion allegations from the record, accusing Baldoni’s lawyer of trying to “promote public scandal” and “transparently [inviting] a press uproar” with his antics. (If you know anything about attorney Bryan Freedman, you know inviting press uproar is kind of his thing.)
Deadline hints that Baldoni’s team dropped the subpoena “because details that the Bryan Freedman-represented Baldoni and crew sought were provided.” But Swift’s side has adamantly asserted that she had absolutely no involvement in It Ends With Us, so what relevant details could she possibly have? More text messages of Blake Lively calling herself Khaleesi? Anyway, neither Baldoni’s nor Swift’s team commented on this latest turn of events, but Lively’s team did, with a statement clearly meant to present Lively and Swift as a united front, despite persistent tabloid rumors that their friendship has suffered from all the drama and scrutiny.
“We are pleased that Justin Baldoni and the Wayfarer Parties have withdrawn their harassing subpoenas to Taylor Swift and her law firm. We supported the efforts of Taylor’s team to quash these inappropriate subpoenas directed to her counsel and we will continue to stand up for any third party who is unjustly harassed or threatened in the process,” a spokesperson for Lively said on Thursday (via Deadline). “The Baldoni and Wayfarer team have tried to put Taylor Swift, a woman who has been an inspiration for tens of millions across the globe, at the center of this case since day one. Exploiting Taylor Swift’s celebrity was the original plan in Melissa Nathan’s scenario planning document, and it continues to this day. Faced with having to justify themselves in federal court, they folded.”
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