Taylor Swift will sit for a deposition in the ongoing legal battle between “It Ends With Us” co-stars, Justin Baldoni and Blake Lively, if the court requires her to. A Thursday court filing from the actor/director’s legal team asked for an extension to accommodate her schedule, but it has not yet been granted.
If forced, the pop superstar would give an out-of-court sworn-in testimony and could likely be asked by Baldoni’s camp about any discussions she had with Lively regarding the conditions on the movie set and any other conversations relevant to the case.
“As counsel for the parties know, since the inception of this matter we have consistently maintained that my client has no material role in this action,” Swift’s team wrote to Judge Lewis Liman on Friday. “Further, my client did not agree to a deposition, but if she is forced into a deposition, we advised (after first hearing about the deposition just three days ago) that her schedule would accommodate the time required during the week of Oct. 20 if the parties were able to work out their disputes.”
Baldoni’s side asked the court Thursday to extend the deadline for discovery to accommodate “third-party witness Taylor Swift who has agreed to appear for deposition but is unable to do so before Oct. 20,” in a court filing obtained by TheWrap.
Lively, meanwhile, has called Wayfarer Studios co-founder Steve Sarowitz and Baldoni for deposition. Her team has also requested Sarowitz and Melissa Nathan’s Signal messages, which will be provided to her team by Friday.
A year after the release of their Colleen Hoover film adaptation “It Ends With Us,” Lively and Baldoni’s messy legal battle is nearing the end of the road. Lively sued Baldoni, her director and co-star in the film, for sexual harassment and retaliation, alleging that he, along with the film’s producers and publicists, launched an online smear campaign against her in retaliation. A trial is scheduled for next spring in federal court in New York.
In a Thursday letter to Judge Liman, Baldoni’s team responded to Lively’s claims that they were dragging their feet. Her lawyers requested an extension of the deadline to take depositions from Sept. 30 to Oct. 10. In response, Baldoni’s lawyers said that was not true, and the only reason for their extension was to take Swift’s deposition during the week of Oct. 20 to 25.
A judge ruled in June that Baldoni’s team could also obtain messages between the two women that pertain to “It Ends With Us” and any legal drama between the film’s co-stars. Lively had asked that New York Judge Liman block the subpoena, arguing that her co-star was dragging Swift into the conflict to make more of a spectacle, but her request was denied.
Swift has a close relationship with Lively and her family. Lively’s husband Ryan Reynolds confirmed that the 14-time Grammy Award winner is the godparent to Reynolds and Lively’s three daughters, James, Inez and Betty, the latter of whom she even referenced by name on her album, “Folklore.”
