Baldoni, Swifts Secret Code Word Shocks Lively!

Justin Baldoni's wife Emily and smiled a knowing smile.

'This feels like the moment,' she said, as Baldoni nodded beside her. With a carefully rehearsed casual shrug, he added: 'So, here we are.'

The moment, of course, did not come by chance. Neither did the couple's five-minute speech, lamenting 'so many painful things that have been spoken into existence over the last couple of years.'

Despite the relaxed and raw style, this was a candy-coated cruise missile, targeted and timed to perfection.

Because the Baldonis chose to break that lengthy silence while was still licking her wounds from the most public snubbing of her life. Just five days earlier the actress had been excluded from the wedding of her former friend, . 

One thousand people snagged an invite, but neither Lively nor her husband were among them. The subtext in Baldoni's carefully-scripted speech seemed clear: No Taylor. No clout.

After all, it was the power of the singer with which Lively had once threatened Baldoni in texts in which she referred to herself as the character Khaleesi from Game of Thrones, and cast Swift and Reynolds as her 'dragons.'

'If you ever get around to watching Game of Thrones, you'll appreciate that I'm Khaleesi, and like her, I happen to have a few dragons,' Lively wrote.

The lawsuit, brought by Lively against Baldoni in December 2024 in which she accused him, among other things, of sexual harassment on the set of the film It Ends With Us, was settled in May. By then, the bulk of the actress's claims had been gutted.

But both parties came away deeply tarnished by the tawdry affair. Key among the carnage was the very public destruction of Lively's friendship with Swift after those text messages between the two women were made horribly, embarrassingly public.

One month before the sides settled, Lively had issued a defiant statement on Instagram, in which she seemed again to reference Swift, claiming she had taken legal action 'for those who don't have the same opportunity to.'

'The physical pain from digital violence is very real,' she wrote. 'It is abuse. And it's everywhere. Not just in the news, but in your communities and schools. If you're looking, my claims won't be the first or last time you'll see examples of the extreme dangers of retaliation and digital warfare. And it often won't be directed at celebrities or those who may able to speak up. It affects us all.'

She ended her statement with a dragon emoji - believed to be a reference to her warm description of Swift as her 'dragon.'

Swift did not appreciate the olive branch, and the pair remain estranged. Now it is hard to see them ever reuniting - a blow to Lively's star power, and career.

Lively has not made a film since It Ends With Us