It’s the most jaw-dropping showbiz feud in recent times – with escalating mud-slinging and new allegations and receipts emerging every day. But as the Blake Lively V Justin Baldoni lawsuit drama kicked off officially this week, with lawyers meeting in court for a pretrial hearing in New York to discuss – among other issues – each side’s attempts to weaponise the press and public against the other, there was one famous face who was desperately hoping not to be dragged into the drama yet again: Blake’s BFF, Taylor Swift.
According to insiders, the singer has been watching in shock as her name has been repeatedly mentioned in legal documents – with Blake’s camp alleging that Justin’s team were planning to exploit her friendship with the singer, and Justin’s camp releasing proof that Blake referred to her superstar friend as her Game of Thrones-style 'dragon' who loyally and vehemently protected her (in what some say was a thinly-veiled threat against Justin and an attempt to leverage power against him). Now, as the drama continues, we’re told Taylor is doing all she can to distance herself from the narrative.
'Taylor is seriously reconsidering her friendship with Blake, and is actively in damage control right now,' says an insider close to the 35 year old who, having finally completed her groundbreaking Eras tour, has been doing her best to lay low with her boyfriend, Kansas City Chiefs football player, Travis Kelce. 'The whole drama with Justin has spiralled out of control, and it seems as if Blake has implicated Taylor and kind of thrown her under the bus a bit. Taylor has some of the best people in the business around her and they can all see how negative the fight is affecting the public’s opinion of Blake and her husband Ryan Reynolds and she wants no part of that. She’s America’s sweetheart and wants to stay that way.'
Taylor and Blake’s friendship dates back to 2015, when they both started waxing lyrical about each other. Since then, they’ve enjoyed holidays and evenings out, contributed to each other’s work (among many collaborations, Blake directed Taylor’s 2021 music video for I Bet You Think About Me) and have fully enmeshed themselves in each other’s lives. Blake often accompanies Taylor to Travis’ football games, while Taylor has been named godparent to Blake and Ryan’s four daughters.
However, their longstanding alliance has now been thrown into serious doubt amid Blake’s legal battle against her former It Ends With Us co-star and director, Justin. In December, Blake filed a legal complaint, and then a lawsuit against Justin, his publicist and his production company, accusing him of sexual harassment on set and of 'retaliating against her' for reporting said misdemeanours. She also alleged he’d orchestrated a PR campaign to 'destroy' her reputation. However, Justin fired back, filing a federal lawsuit against Blake, Ryan and her publicist, Leslie Sloane. In the latter, he said that his former co-star had 'tormented' him and his family, falsely accused him of sexual harassment and used him as a 'scapegoat' to quieten the negative press surrounding her.
The ensuing battle has gotten uglier by the day – with both sides using texts, video footage and audio to try to corroborate their cases. But it’s Justin who’s seemingly been most transparent – producing pages and pages of screenshotted text messages he shared with Blake and Ryan, which cast her earlier complaints that he “fat-shamed” her, overstepped his boundaries behind the scenes, and refused to let her work with an intimacy coordinator into doubt. Meanwhile, Justin’s most damning move came last week, when he and his team released a website – named thelawsuitinfo.com - dedicated to supporting his case with a timeline of events, plus every single text message and email he and Blake ever exchanged. In a recent text reveal, we see Blake suggestively boast to Justin about her writing style, 'If you knew me (in person) longer you’d have a sense of how flirty and yummy the ball busting will play. It’s my love language. Spicy and playfully bold, never with teeth…'
Meanwhile, throughout the battle – which ostensibly concerns Blake, Ryan and Justin – it’s somehow Taylor who’s been unknowingly implicated. Justin alleges that, during one tense meeting at Blake and Ryan’s New York penthouse, Taylor arrived on the scene. Insiders have since said that Taylor had no idea what she was walking into, and simply thought she was attending a social arrangement. Since then, damning texts have been revealed, in which Blake complained to Justin that he hadn’t taken some of her script re-writes seriously. In the texts, she said that Ryan and Taylor had both been disappointed by Justin’s ambivalence towards her work.
'When they [Ryan and Taylor] signed off on the pages, I felt good to send them to you,' she wrote. 'They asked what you thought specifically after. They checked in so many times. I told them that you laughed a bunch and said it's probably a blend but you appreciate my passion so much. Which of course didn't feel great for me. Or them. To have my passion be praised instead of any specific contribution.'
She then added, in what many deem to be a thinly-veiled threat against Justin, 'If you ever get around to watching Game of Thrones, you'll appreciate that I'm Khaleesi, and like her, I happen to have a few dragons. For better or worse, but usually for better. Because my dragons also protect those I fight for. So really we all benefit from those monsters of mine you will too, I can promise you.'
By all accounts, it’s clear that the 'dragons' she’s referring to are Ryan and Taylor. But while Ryan is, of course, loyally standing by his wife, our insider says that Taylor has been totally blindsided by her unwitting involvement, revealing, 'She claims she had no idea about Blake calling her and Ryan her dragons until she read it in the press like everyone else. She is now trying to keep her distance from Blake and Ryan until things die down, but this case isn't going to go away anytime soon unless a settlement can be reached - and Justin isn't looking to settle.'
As things stand, the actual court case isn’t due to kick off until March 2026 – but, in this week’s hearing, the judge suggested he may have to move the date up to avoid jurors being prejudiced against the defendants amid the media storm. In the meantime, it seems that Taylor is doing her level best to distance herself from the noise and focus instead on Travis’ upcoming Super Bowl match this weekend – especially given his fans will take her to task if he doesn’t do well.
'She doesn't want this to be a distraction for Travis ahead of the Super Bowl and is worried that superstitious football fans will blame her if his team lose,' we’re told.
As for Blake and Taylor’s friendship, it all hinges on how long it takes for the noise to die down – and whether Justin and Blake will reach a settlement before even more dirty laundry is publicly aired. But with neither party willing to blink first, it seems things Blake might just have lost her dragon for good.