It Ends With Us director and star, Justin Baldoni and lead actress Blake Lively seem to be stuck in a serious battle of lawsuits that has taken an increasingly ugly turn with each passing day, involving new allegations, evidence, and statements from various A-listers in the creative industry. It all began in December when Lively filed legal action against Baldoni, detailing allegations of sexual harassment and a smear campaign orchestrated by Baldoni’s PR team in her lawsuit.
An attorney for Baldoni dismissed the allegations as “completely false, outrageous, and intentionally salacious,” accusing Lively of risking to defame him. What followed the first lawsuit was a series of escalating accusations, topping off the latest claim from Justin Baldoni. He alleges that co-star Blake Lively leaned on powerful people in her life to ensure her vision for their movie It Ends With Us ended up in the final cut.
Out of the two powerful people, one is pop icon Taylor Swift, who has been Blake Lively’s close friend for years, and the other, her husband and Deadpool actor, Ryan Reynolds. The recent lawsuit, which was filed on January 16, claims that Reynolds and Taylor Swift altered a version of a scene in the movie written by Lively. His team presented the lawsuits with screenshots of text messages between Baldoni and Lively.
While the pop icon is not named in the suit, except for one text message in which a “Taylor” is mentioned. In the text of the lawsuit, she is referred to as a “megacelebrity friend.” As per NBC News, Baldoni’s team later confirmed that the Taylor referred to in the lawsuit is indeed Swift. In a counter statement, an attorney for Lively said Thursday that Baldoni’s lawsuit was “another chapter in the abuser playbook.”
Justin Baldoni Claims Ryan Reynolds and Taylor Swift Pressured Him to Accept Blake Lively’s It Ends With Us Rewrite https://t.co/6s0ukfVWYW
— People (@people) January 16, 2025
Prior to this, in his latest $400 million lawsuit, Justin Baldoni alleges that he permitted Blake Lively to rewrite the iconic “rooftop scene” in It Ends With Us, where their characters first meet. According to the suit, Lively had texted Baldoni requesting the opportunity, noting that other directors had never entitled her to contribute to scriptwriting.
Despite being hesitant, Baldoni agreed, only to find that Lively’s version “dramatically differed” from the original script. Baldoni later “thanked Lively for her passion” and told her the scene would most likely end up somewhere between the original and her new version. However, Lively did not respond for several days. When she finally replied, she admitted that his feedback “of course didn’t feel great for me or them (referring to Swift and Reynolds collectively),” according to screenshots of the alleged conversation included in the lawsuit.
Lively also wrote, “To have my passion be praised instead of any specific contribution.” The lawsuit also said, Baldoni claims Reynolds praised Lively’s rewritten scene during a discussion with a close friend, later identified as Swift, also praising her work. Baldoni alleges this created pressure to adopt Lively’s version.
Lively, in her response, referred to Reynolds and Swift as her “dragons,” who fiercely support her creative efforts, likening herself to Khaleesi from Game of Thrones. She credited them as trusted collaborators who ensured her contributions were acknowledged. Neither Taylor Swift nor Ryan Reynolds have commented on this matter at the time of writing this news.
