You’re All Reading Way Too Much Into Taylor Swift’s Texts About Justin Baldoni
Once again, Taylor Swift has been brought into the It Ends With Us legal drama between Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni. New court documents have been unsealed surrounding the case, as part of Lively’s ongoing lawsuit over Baldoni’s conduct as director and star of the film. The actress alleges, among other thing, that Baldoni sexual harassed her and created a hostile work environment.
These documents include records of some texts between Lively and Swift, who has been friends with the actress for years and is the godmother of her children. In the texts, Lively refers to Baldoni as “this doofus director of my movie,” describing him as “a clown” and joking that he “thinks he’s a writer now.”
Lively also asks Swift to look over the latest draft of the It Ends With Us script before arriving at Lively’s house, where she and Baldoni were meeting at the time. (Lively’s deposition from July of last year confirms these events.) Swift texted back “I’ll do anything for you !!”
Afterwards, Lively texted Swift, “You were so epically heroic today. I recapped every moment to Ryan. I kept remembering stuff—You making s–t up about me and lenses. And referring to yourself as my doll. This clown falling for all of it. But also resisting it.” She added “You are the worlds absolute greatest friend ever.”
Elsewhere in the documents is a text from Swift, allegedly about Baldoni, saying: “I think this bitch knows something is coming because he’s gotten out his tiny violin.” It is not clear if this text is in reference to the New York Times article surrounding Baldoni and the smear campaign he attempted to mount against Lively.
Taylor Swift and It Ends With Us…
Swift’s connections to Lively, her husband Ryan Reynolds, and It Ends With Us have been a point of contention throughout this legal case. She licensed one of her songs, “my tears ricochet”, to be used in the film, but did not post about the finished film or otherwise acknowledge it publicly. Regardless of this, Swift’s name has been invoked throughout this process, to the point of there being attempts to subpoena her as a witness in the case.
Planning documents from Baldoni’s team specifically cite Swift as a figure to target in the smear campaign, saying in part: “As part of this, our team can also explore planting stories about the weaponization of feminism and how people in BL’s circle like Taylor Swift, have been accused of utilizing these tactics to ‘bully’ into getting what they want.”
All the while — especially as Swift had not spoken about the case publicly — parts of the Internet had speculated at length that Swift and Lively had a falling out over the ordeal. That theory seemed to be debunked with the October 2025 release of “CANCELLED!”, a song on Swift’s twelfth studio album, The Life of a Showgirl.
In the song’s lyrics, Swift defends her friends who society has attempted to bash or ostracize for various reasons, which many interpreted to be a subtle defense of Lively amid the legal case. It’s worth mentioning that one of the lyrics mentions bringing “a tiny violin to a knife fight”, which takes on a whole new context with the mention of Baldoni’s “tiny violin” in these texts.
Fans have jumped to their own conclusions since these texts were publicly released, ranging from accusing Swift and Lively of masterminding a campaign against Baldoni, to simply arguing that their conversation sounds like two friends privately looking out for each other. (I, personally, lean heavily towards the latter.) Either way, the fact that Swift’s fame and her years-long friendship with Lively keeps becoming a point of contention in this case — despite her basically being a third party in the whole ordeal — is frustrating to see on a legal and journalistic level.
(featured image: Gotham/GC Images)
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