Last week, Time Magazine revealed their Time 100 list of “most influential people,” with several influential people getting their own covers. Blake Lively was on the list and she received her own cover. It was somewhat controversial, like Time was “choosing sides” in what will probably be a years-long legal battle between Blake and Justin Baldoni. What was even more strange is that the Time essay about Blake highlighted her donation to the NAACP Legal Defense Fund (as in, that was “the reason” why Blake made the list). Well, last night was the Time 100 gala, and Blake was there with her husband and her mother. Blake wore a Zuhair Murad gown with emerald jewelry – she looked fine. Ryan looked… odd. I’m getting a vibe, and that’s all I’ll say. You can read Blake’s speech at the gala here.
Blake and Ryan’s appearance actually came on the heels of some interesting reporting in People Magazine which I wanted to discuss. Several months ago, there was some interesting gossip that Blake and Taylor Swift’s friendship was on the rocks because Taylor didn’t appreciate Blake leveraging Taylor and Taylor’s name at work. As in, Blake used Taylor’s name as one of her “dragons” to threaten Justin Baldoni professionally, and Blake also had Taylor come to her home to personally pressure Baldoni to use “the Blake rewrites.” Taylor and Blake have still not been photographed together since this legal situation began. Well, Thursday afternoon, People Mag reported this:
Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds’ famous friends, Taylor Swift and Hugh Jackman, could be served with subpoenas as part of the It Ends with Us legal battle with Justin Baldoni, a source tells PEOPLE.
“Anyone that had any knowledge of this situation will be subpoenaed, no matter of their celebrity status,” the source says.
However, another insider says Swift and Jackman are “not privy to anything going on,” adding that claims they will be subpoenaed are “smoke and mirrors and trying to distract from the allegations against Baldoni.”
PEOPLE is out to attorneys for both Lively, 37, and Baldoni, 41, for comment, as well as representatives for Swift and Jackman.
It’s not “smoke and mirrors” – Taylor was clearly present during a pretty significant and much-debated meeting between Blake and Justin, a meeting which caused a flurry of texts, threats and legal actions in its wake. I have no idea if Hugh Jackman was witness or party to anything like that, but Taylor absolutely was. Well, just after People published that story, they followed up with this (after obviously hearing more from Blake’s team):
Taylor Swift and Blake Lively’s friendship is weathering the storm. Swift “was really hurt,” a source tells PEOPLE, after being implicated in Lively’s ongoing legal battle with Justin Baldoni over behind-the-scenes conflict on their movie It Ends with Us.
Lively, 37, referred to the pop star, 35, as one of her “dragons” in an alleged text exchange, according to a complaint Baldoni filed in January, which claimed that Swift had pressured him to accept rewrites on the movie. The latest development in Lively v. Wayfarer Studios et al. is the reported possibility that Swift could be among those served with subpoenas.
“Blake knew she and Taylor would come back from this at some point and that their friendship wasn’t done for good,” the insider says of the legal difficulties. “Taylor was really hurt by this situation, so she’s relieved they were able to recover from this and put it all behind them because it wasn’t something she took lightly,” they add.
Taylor wasn’t “implicated” though – what Baldoni described was Blake leveraging her famous friends to apply pressure on him to accept her rewrites. He’s not suing Taylor, but Taylor is absolutely going to have to sit for a deposition and she might have to testify in court, regardless of whatever Blake is telling Taylor now. This second piece reads like Blake’s team furiously doing damage-control on the Taylor fallout, because Taylor still hasn’t agreed to do a “we’re still BFFs” photo-op with Blake.
Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Cover Images.
