Taylor Swift tried to help her close friend Blake Lively ‘tone down’ her ‘ballsy’ nature years before the actress’ legal roller coaster with Justin Baldoni, insiders claim.
The Gossip Girl alum, 37, is currently locked in a bitter battle with her It Ends With Us co-star, 41, whom she accused of sexual harassment and launching a smear campaign against her in a bombshell lawsuit last year.
Baldoni is now countersuing both Lively and her husband Ryan Reynolds, 48, for $400 million, and shocked the world when he dragged Swift into the explosive legal feud.
The messy spat between Lively and Baldoni has seen her past behavior come under scrutiny as the public casts judgement with each new update.
Insiders claim Swift had tried to advise her pal about going ‘full throttle’ in the years before the saga.
‘Taylor Swift admires that Blake Lively is a ballsy chick who speaks her mind, swears like a trooper and refuses to be controlled by anyone,’ a source told DailyMail.com.
Taylor Swift tried to help her close friend Blake Lively ‘tone down’ her ‘ballsy’ nature years before the actress’ legal battle with Justin Baldoni, insiders claim (pictured February 2024)
The A Simple Favor actress, 37, is currently locked in a bitter legal battle against It Ends With Us co-star Justin Baldoni whom she accused of sexual harassment (pictured in 2024)
‘That’s the real reason they bonded and became firm friends when they first met 10 years ago.’
They continued: ‘Taylor saw her doppelgänger in Blake. The main difference between them is that Taylor is more subtle. Blake has always gone full throttle about everything. She never holds back and that’s what has caused the tide to turn on her.
‘Taylor has tried to help tone Blake down in the past, but she now knows it’s never going to happen.’
They finished: ‘Right now, while they’re still close, there’s a slight shift because of the It Ends With Us drama. Taylor doesn’t like the fact that she’s been dragged into it.’
In his lawsuit filed last month, Baldoni claimed Lively used Swift to intimidate him at a meeting with her husband about edits she had made to a rooftop scene.
Baldoni claimed Swift made him feel like he ‘needed to comply with Blake’s direction for the script’.
Lively later appeared to threaten Baldoni by comparing herself to Game of Thrones character Khaleesi in a series of text messages in which she referred to Reynolds and her best friend as her ‘dragons’.
A source previously told DailyMail.com that the ‘uncool and unnecessary’ description was a shock for Swift who had never planned to be at the meeting, but arrived at Lively’s New York penthouse to find it was still ongoing.
Insiders claim Swift, 35, had tried to advise her pal about going ‘full throttle’ with certain things in the years before the saga
The source said: ‘Taylor Swift admires that Blake Lively is a ballsy chick who speaks her mind, swears like a trooper and refuses to be controlled by anyone’
‘For the time being she is taking a step back from Blake because she doesn’t want to get tangled in this more than she already has – which is far more than she ever needed to be,’ an insider told DailyMail.com.
Khaleesi, also known as Daenerys Targaryen and Mother of Dragons, is one of the main characters in Game of Thrones, which aired between 2011 to 2019.
She was portrayed as a villain after descending into madness and turning to vengeance due to trauma and loss.
A second source revealed at the time: ‘Taylor has politely backed away from it all. She is conscious of her own image and hates that she was even mentioned.’
The idea of Swift pulling back came as a shock to fans of the pair who have been friends for a decade, celebrating milestones together, with Swift even name dropping Lively’s children in her music.
In fact, the singer’s music became a part of the legal back and forth after Baldoni claimed in the lawsuit Lively leveraged her friendship with the Grammy-winner to get her way behind the scenes.
According to Baldoni’s lawsuit, Lively threatened to withhold approval of the film trailer if she did not get extra time working on a cut of the movie with her own personal editor.
He claimed in the suit that the actress threatened to ‘change her mind’ about reaching out to Swift to secure the use of her hit 2020 track My Tears Ricochet.
The source added: ‘Taylor has tried to tone Blake down in the past, but she now knows it’s never going to happen’
The track, which is from Taylor’s folklore album, was eventually used in the trailer but Baldoni alleged that Lively tried to use her friendship with the singer to make sure her demands were met.
An alleged text exchange with a Sony executive read: ‘Blake is calling Taylor to approve the song. She of course just reached out saying she is asking for time with [REDACTED] her editor. We know it was conditional on signing contract – but asking if you will reconsider – so [REDACTED] can release this trailer and Blake does not change her me re calling Taylor Swift.’
Baldoni noted that they agreed to her demands in order to move forward as planned. The exchange allegedly took place in May 2024.
Swift appeared to rally around Lively when rumor of a troubling rift between the actress and Baldoni first started bubbling by August.
She was pictured arriving at Swift’s Rhode Island property, taking solace at the $17 million, eight bedroom estate alongside her husband Reynolds, to escape the frenzy.
At the time Lively was being called out for her ‘tone deaf’ marketing, apparently dismissing interview questions about domestic violence – a major theme in the movie – in favour of telling people to grab their ‘florals’ and head to the cinema.
Others accused her of using the attention to plug her alcohol brand Betty Booze.
Resurfaced interviews showing the actress being ‘rude’ to reporters also went viral on social media.
The singer’s music became a part of the legal back and forth after Baldoni claimed Lively leveraged her friendship with the Grammy-winner to get her own way behind the scenes
Baldoni claimed Lively threatened to ‘change her mind’ about reaching out to Swift to secure the use of her hit 2020 track My Tears Ricochet
Swift appeared to rally around Lively when rumor of a troubling rift between the actress and Baldoni first started bubbling by August (pictured 2023)
Lively and Swift were last pictured together in October on a double date with Deadpool actor Reynolds and Swift’s boyfriend Travis Kelce in Manhattan.
The outing came two months before she filed a complaint with the California Civil Rights Department in which she accused Baldoni of sexual harassment and creating a toxic environment on the set of It Ends with Us.
At the same time, the New York Times released a story based on her legal filing that accused him of orchestrating a smear campaign against her.
Swift was then pulled into the roller coaster saga when Baldoni fired back with a stinging counter suit against Lively and Reynolds in which he accused the Hollywood couple of conspiring to trash his reputation.
It Ends with Us was a box-office hit, earning $351 million worldwide despite a $25 million budget.
Based on the best-selling novel by Colleen Hoover, no update has been made about an adaptation of the sequel book, It Starts with Us.
Baldoni, Lively and the NYT have all denied the claims levelled against them.
