The sordid and exhausting legal drama between Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni, her co-star and director of “It Ends With Us,” could end in a settlement, especially with the possibility that Taylor Swift could be deposed and forced to share details about her role in the saga, legal experts said Wednesday.
Swift is Lively’s close friend, and she and Lively’s husband, Ryan Reynolds, were present during a now-infamous meeting with Baldoni, where the the director said he was pressured into accepting Lively’s rewrites for a key scene in the domestic violence drama, when his and Lively’s characters first meet before falling in love.
During an interview on TMZ’s new legal podcast, Two Angry Men, Baldoni’s lawyer Bryan Freedman played coy about whether he planned to depose Swift, though he didn’t rule out the possibility.
“I don’t know that we’re going to depose Taylor Swift or not,” Freeman said. “I think that’s probably going to be a game-time decision.” But he added, “I can tell you this. Anyone that reasonably has information that can provide evidence in this case is gonna be deposed.”
With that, host Harvey Levin, TMZ’s founder and a longtime attorney himself, declared, “That’s Taylor Swift. She was there for that meeting.” Freedman acknowledged: “She was there for that meeting.”
Freedman is representing Baldoni in a $400 million defamation and extortion lawsuit against Lively and Reynolds, alleging that the Hollywood power couple wrested control of his movie from him and sought to destroy his reputation. Baldoni’s lawsuit was filed after Lively’s team first went to the New York Times last year to share details about a legal complaint she was about to file against Baldoni, alleging that she was sexually harassed during the film’s production and targeted by him and others for public relations “smear campaign.” Lively subsequently sued Baldoni for sexual harassment, while Baldoni also has sued the New York Times for libel, alleging $250 million in damages.
Earlier in the podcast, Levin declared to his co-host, celebrity attorney Mark Geragos: “This case will never go to trial. This case will never see a courtroom.”
After Levin asserted that the lawsuits filed by both Lively and Baldoni, were ultimately done for “P.R.” purposes, he explained that Lively has a reason to want to quietly settle this case, even on Baldoni’s terms.
“She doesn’t want to get deposed,” Levin said. “She doesn’t want Ryan to get deposed, and she certainly doesn’t want Taylor to get deposed. And Taylor will put pressure on her for that.”
Geragos, agreed, saying: “Remember what a deposition is? A deposition is one lawyer, who is adverse to you, taking your deposition. On camera. Without a judge to sustain objections. The only thing you can object on is (some kind of) privilege. You’ve got to answer everything, so every laundry list of dirty deed that you have ever done could be fair game. No way she’s going to submit to that.”
Geragos also said: “You’ve heard of too big to fail? This is one of those too big to try.” He explained that people could be jeopardizing their careers and there is “too much money” at stake — between Reynolds, Lively and the studios involved.
Both Geragos and Levin also opined that Lively’s team never expected Baldoni to respond so aggressively.
The legal drama began after Lively’s team initially went to the New York Times to air her complaints about her “It Ends With Us” co-star and his co-producer and publicists. Like other legal experts, including Eriq Gardner at Puck, Levin and Geragos said it’s significant that Lively didn’t file a lawsuit at first, but rather a complaint with California’s Civil Right Department, just as the New York Times published its viral take-down of Baldoni: ‘We Can Bury Anyone’: Inside a Hollywood Smear Machine.”
Experts have speculated that Lively’s team hoped that the legal complaint would offer the Times “immunity” for publishing some of Lively’s more damaging claims against Baldoni. All along, Baldoni and his Wayfarer Studios have said that Lively went to the news organization in an effort to repair the “negative reputation” she garnered for comments she made during the press tour for “It Ends With Us.” Lively was roasted online, including by domestic violence survivors, for downplaying the film’s focus on intimate partner violence and instead playing the movie up as an occasion for women to dress up in florals and enjoy a fun girls’ night out. She also was criticized for promoting her hair care brand during the press tour.
“The irony is that Blake Lively’s team, they go and they hoodwink the New York Times,” said Geragos, who also argued that the New York Times didn’t do its “due diligence” in investigating Lively’s side of the story. In his lawsuits, Baldoni has alleged that the Times reporters, including renowned #MeToo investigative journalist Megan Twohey, only shared Lively’s “cherry-picked” text messages between Baldoni’s publicists to make the case that they orchestrated a smear campaign.
“The New York Times decides they’re going to run with it,” Geragos said. “But (Freedman), as the kids would say, has the receipts.” Freedman has shared those “receipts” in Baldoni’s lawsuits and in a controversial timeline of events that he’s made public on a website he established last weekend.
While Levin also argued that Baldoni’s lawsuits ultimately are not “about money” but to repair his reputation, he and Geragos agreed that his lawyer’s aggressive tactics haven’t just salvaged the actor/director’s public image but made him famous. Thus far, they say he is winning the P.R. game, which is why he would be motived to settle. “His popularity has increased. He has a reason to walk away,” Levin said.