Was Taylor Swift Really Mentioned in Justin Baldoni’s Lawsuit Against Blake Lively?

Taylor Swift would probably like to be excluded from the It Ends With Us narrative, but here we are.

While the pop star allowed “My Tears Ricochet” to be used in the film’s trailer and final cut, Swift didn’t post about the film’s premiere despite heavily praising Ryan Reynolds’ Deadpool project, which was released around the same time. Still, she was hardly a prominent figure in the evolving discourse, which began after fans noticed tensions between IEWU director/star Justin Baldoni and the rest of the cast, particularly Blake Lively, in August 2024.

That seems to have changed now that Baldoni has officially responded to Lively’s sexual harassment lawsuit and smear campaign accusations with a defamation complaint against Lively and Reynolds, as well as Lively’s publicist Leslie Sloane and her firm, Vision PR.

According to a TMZ article about Baldoni’s 179-page complaint, Taylor Swift “popped in with her 2 cents” about the film’s pivotal rooftop scene (which Lively later told E! News was written by her husband, Ryan Reynolds). TMZ also claimed Lively referred to Swift as one of her “dragons” after Baldoni agreed to Lively’s changes to the script. But is that really the case?

Well, it’s complicated. As TMZ wrote in their report, Swift is not being sued by Baldoni and any mention of a “Taylor” is in passing. However, it’s worth pointing out a few things. Here’s what we know.

Taylor Swift’s full name is never mentioned.

On pages 21 through 25 of the latest complaint, which can be found here, Baldoni’s lawyers claim Lively asked to “take a pass” at rewriting the rooftop scene during pre-production and was “stung” by his hesitance to accept her changes, though the court document claims he “thanked Lively for her passion and diplomatically told her that the scene would likely end up being somewhere between the original version and Lively’s version.”

In one alleged text message to Baldoni, Lively allegedly claimed his response “didn’t feel great for me. Or them,” supposedly referring to her husband and a redacted “megacelebrity friend.”

According to the suit, there had been a prior meeting between Lively, Reynolds, and Baldoni about the scene. “Hours later, as the meeting was ending, a famous, and famously close, friend of Reynolds and Lively, walked into the room and similarly began praising Lively’s script,” the suit says. “Baldoni understood the subtext: he needed to comply with Lively’s direction for the script.”

So, why do people think this friend is Taylor Swift?

While Taylor Swift is close enough to both Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds to have been named their daughters’ godmother, she’s far from their only famous friend. However, that’s not the only reason many are assuming Swift is the celebrity friend in question.

Although the name of the “megacelebrity friend” was redacted from the suit and seems to have been redacted from at least one text screenshot, the name “Taylor” was left visible in a text from Baldoni to Lively.