Blake Lively allegedly asked Taylor Swift to delete texts amid legal battle with Justin Baldoni

Taylor Swift and Blake Lively have been close friends since 2015. Photo / Bang Showbiz

Blake Lively allegedly asked Taylor Swift to delete their text messages as part of her ongoing legal battle with actor and director Justin Baldoni.

The actor, 37, has been locked in a legal battle for months with 41-year-old film-maker Baldoni after accusing him of harassment on the set of their film It Ends With Us. Her and Swift’s relationship became entangled in the lawsuit earlier this year.

According to newly filed court documents revealed by Page Six, lawyers representing Baldoni and his production company, Wayfarer Studios, cite an anonymous source “who is highly likely to have reliable information”, alleging that Lively made the text deletion request to Swift, 35 – though the exact timing of the apparent conversation was not disclosed.

According to the filing, Baldoni’s legal team further alleged Lively’s lead attorney, Michael Gottlieb, had approached Swift’s law firm, Venable, to request a “statement of support” from the pop star.

The court document claims the request carried an implied threat: “If Ms Swift refused to do so, private text messages of a personal nature in Ms Lively’s possession would be released.”

Baldoni’s lawyers said a representative for Swift responded to the alleged threat in a written communication sent directly to Gottlieb.

“It is those communications that the Wayfarer parties seek to obtain by way of subpoena,” the filing reads, referencing an ongoing legal battle over access to Venable’s internal correspondence.

The documents allege the communications “would evidence an attempt to intimidate and coerce a percipient witness in this litigation”.

Swift has not been accused of any wrongdoing but she has been subpoenaed as a potential witness in the case.

Gottlieb responded to the allegations by calling them “categorically false” and “completely untethered from reality” in a statement to Page Six, adding he “unequivocally” denied them.

Swift’s publicist also said the Grammy winner “was not involved” in the production of the film at the centre of the dispute between Baldoni and Lively, and had been “travelling around the globe during 2023 and 2024 headlining the biggest tour in history”.

Lively and Swift have been close friends since 2015.

In January, Baldoni filed a countersuit against Lively, accusing her of defamation and extortion.

In the countersuit, he alleged Lively had invoked Swift and her husband, Ryan Reynolds, as protectors in creative disputes.

“The message could not have been clearer,” Baldoni’s lawyers wrote in the filing.

“Baldoni was not just dealing with Lively. He was also facing Lively’s ‘dragons’, two of the most influential and wealthy celebrities in the world, who were not afraid to make things very difficult for him.”