Taylor Swift Did Not Agree To Baldoni Deposition, Blake Lively Says

Justin Baldoni‘s latest attempt to pull Taylor Swift into his defense against sexual harassment and retaliation allegations from It End With Us co-star Blake Lively looks to be going off the rails faster than the Grammy winner’s upcoming The Life of a Showgirl album is expected to rocket to the top of the charts.

Not yet approved by a judge in the case that goes to trial next spring, Baldoni and his Wayfarer Studies inner circle want to see Swift deposed “during the week of October 20-25 due to Ms. Swift’s preexisting professional obligations. However, the recently engaged singer has not been “agreed” to the sit-down next month, which comes weeks after discovery in the matter was supposed to be over, and Baldoni’s side has presented no “evidence” to justify it, says a sharply worded filing by Lively’s lawyers today.

Calling the effort first made public by Baldoni in a September 11 letter to the court, another move “to fuel their relentless media strategy,” Lively attorney Michael J. Gottlieb wants federal Judge Lewis Liman to deny the Swift deposition, its dates and the discovery extension effort. “Even if one were to take the Wayfarer Defendants’ representation at face value, they have not come close to establishing good cause for their requested relief,” the Willkie Farr & Gallagher partner insists.

“The Wayfarer Defendants assert that Ms. Swift is not available for a deposition until October 20, 2025, yet are silent about their efforts (if any) to schedule this deposition during the existing discovery period,” Gottlieb adds.

“That is likely because, as explained in the attached correspondence between the parties, see Exhibit A, the Wayfarer Defendants do not appear to have contacted Ms. Swift’s counsel regarding a date or location about the deposition until earlier this week,” Lively co-lead lawyer states.

“In this respect, the Wayfarer Defendants’ lack of diligence, and disrespect for Ms. Swift’s privacy and schedule, is astounding. Discovery has been ongoing for more than six months, and Ms. Swift is someone whose calendar should be presumed to be packed with professional obligations for months in advance,” Gottlieb continued. “At any point over the past six months, the Wayfarer Defendants could have noticed a deposition, served a subpoena, and negotiated an agreeable time and place for this deposition. But they did not.”

As the overall matter heads towards its March 9, 2026 trial date start, Judge Liman will have the final word – for now – on bringing Swift on board and giving Baldoni and his Wayfarer co-founders more time for their own depositions.

Having been round this maypole before over the months since December 2024 when Lively first made her claims to California Civil Rights Department of what went down on the IEWU production and the online smear campaign that allegedly followed, Swift’s reps did not respond to Deadline’s request for comment on the supposed deposition next month and the back-and-forth correspondence. Baldoni and Wayfarer’s PR team also did not answer a request to respond to today’s damning letter from Livley’s side.

Swift and Lively’s long friendship had been a distinct sub-plot in the IEWU legal battles, with tabloid fodder that the duo have fallen out over the controversy adverse Eras Tour performer getting tainted with the whole thing. Swift was name checked in the self titled Scenario Planning document that Baldoni crisis PR chief Melissa Nathan, who is also a defendant in the case, put together in the summer of 2024 as IEWU‘s premiere loomed. “As part of this, our team can also explore planting stories about the weaponization of feminism and how people in BL’s circle like Taylor Swift, have been accused of utilizing these tactics to ‘bully’ into getting what they want,” the five-pager said in a section called
“Scenario 3: Ryan comes forward in defense of his wife.”

On the docket, Swift talking to Baldoni’s Bryan Freedman-led lawyers was a media storm back in May and June. Even before that, Swift, who contributed her ‘My Tears Ricochet’ tune to the Lively cut of IEWU, made a cameo or two in various filings with IEWU director Baldoni feeling ganged up on when Swift’s name was brought up as one of Lively’s “dragons” who backed her suggestions for changes to the movie.

While it does seem that Swift and Lively may not be hangin out that much of late, at least publicly, but the former is still the godmother to one of the latter and Ryan Reynolds’ children. No word, if Lively and Reynolds are going to Swift’s wedding with repeat Super Bowl champ and Kansas City Chief player Travis Kelce – but then again there is no word when that American royalty nuptial day is happening and who is going besides Swift and Kelce.

What we do know is that Swift’s new Life of a Showgirl album is se to drop on October 3 — a few weeks before the deposition Team Baldoni want her to give.