Taylor Swift feels ‘exploited’ by Blake Lively after subpoena: report

Taylor Swift had to expect she d one day get a subpoena to testify in Blake Lively s legal drama with Justin Baldoni After all Baldoni s attorney Bryan Freedman has hinted for months that he d like to depose the superstar singer over what she knows or what she may have been complicit in with regard to her friend s dealings with Baldoni during the production of their film It Ends With Us Once the subpoena was ultimately issued Friday Swift felt compelled to decisively speak out publicly on the matter Her representative issued a blistering declaration in which she denied she was involved in any aspect of the film s production The comment also accused Baldoni s legal unit of using the subpoena to create tabloid clickbait around the matter But as much as Swift rebuked Baldoni s legal tactics others have taken the announcement to mean that Swift is certainly done with Lively after more than years of friendship and is going on the record to create distance between them The Bad Blood singer may understand that the subpoena comes from Baldoni and his attorney but she may still blame Lively for dragging her into this mess declared Elaine Lui of Lainey Gossip The Daily Mail certainly buys this reading The U K tabloid released Sunday that Swift was left devastated and wholly floored on Friday when she received the subpoena even though she couldn t have been too surprised She also was spotted grinning while on a Mother s Day outing in Philadelphia with boyfriend Travis Kelce and his family Still the legal move marked an escalation in the situation and has apparently forced Swift to re-evaluate the friendship according to the Daily Mail Taylor has been aware that Blake has been exploiting her name for a while now but this subpoena takes it to a whole new level a source stated the Daily Mail Up until this year Swift counted Lively among her closest confidantes according to the Daily Mail They live just close to each other in New York s trendy Tribeca neighborhood and Swift is godmother to Lively s three daughters But things began to sour in December when Lively filed a lawsuit against Baldoni her co-star and director for the film the Daily Mail mentioned Lively alleged that he engaged in sexually inappropriate behavior on the set and launched a retaliatory smear campaign after she spoke up during the production Baldoni denied the statements and in January filed a countersuit alleging defamation and extortion against Lively her husband Ryan Reynolds and their publicity gang Baldoni contends that Lively and Reynolds worked to take control of the film which he has reported he spent years growing from Colleen Hoover s best-selling novel about a woman surviving domestic violence Among Baldoni s specific insists are that Swift and Reynolds pressured him into accepting one of Lively s rewrites for the script People revealed In his complaint he described an alleged meeting at Lively and Reynolds Tribeca penthouse where Swift praised Lively s script Baldoni understood the subtext he needed to comply with Lively s direction his complaint announced In an alleged text exchange between Baldoni and Lively following that interaction the director referred to feeling this pressure from Ryan and Taylor but nonetheless complimented the actor on her script changes Lively allegedly responded by comparing herself to Khaleesi from Event of Thrones and called her husband and Swift her dragons Swift s message clearly seemed designed to distance herself from any role in the production of It Ends With Us Taylor Swift never set foot on the set of this movie she was not involved in any casting or creative decisions she did not tally the film she never saw an edit or made any notes on the film she did not even see It Ends With Us until weeks after its citizens release and was traveling around the globe during and headlining the biggest tour in history the comment mentioned according to People The connection Taylor had to this film was permitting the use of one song My Tears Ricochet ' the report continued Given that her involvement was licensing a song for the film which other artists also did this document subpoena is designed to use Taylor Swift s name to draw residents interest by creating tabloid clickbait instead of focusing on the facts of the episode But Swift s effort to distance herself from the film s production stands in contrast to how Lively described her as being with her during the whole process according to BuzzFeed News Indeed if Swift feels exploited by Lively it could be in the way that the actor frequently invoked her name while promoting the movie s release in August At the New York screening for example Lively noted I mean honestly she was with me on this experience the whole time all throughout it so she really lived this with me She s a person who shows up for you and I m so grateful to have that love and promotion Also contradicting the message from Swift s representative that she was not involved in any casting decisions actor Isabela Ferrer explained that Swift was instrumental in landing her role in It Ends With Us Ferrer played the teenage version of Lively s character Lily Bloom During an interview with Access Hollywood Baldoni also revealed that he had presented Ferrer s audition tape to both Lively and Swift and they both agreed that she should be cast