Taylor Swift Was Allegedly More Involved In Blake Lively & Justin Baldoni's Feud Than We Knew

The overwhelmingly negative media storm that followed the release of Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni's movie "It Ends with Us" has reached a fever pitch. And now, even Taylor Swift has been pulled into Lively and Baldoni's explosive legal battle. The "Jane the Virgin" star filed a $400 million countersuit against Lively and her husband, Ryan Reynolds, which includes eyebrow-raising allegations that indicate the "Bad Blood" hitmaker might have unwittingly played a key role in sparking the messy feud between the two actors. The spark that ignited this bonfire reportedly occurred when Lively wanted to rewrite the movie's famous rooftop scene, when her character first meets Baldoni's.

The two couldn't agree on whose version of the script was better and Baldoni claims that he tried to handle this creative difference with as little drama as possible by reassuring Lively that he would try to incorporate both their versions into the final scene. However, the "Gossip Girl" star reportedly went radio silent after this discussion before inviting Baldoni over to her house, where he arrived to find a welcoming committee made up of Reynolds and Swift, both of whom offered up extensive praise for Lively's version of the scene in what appeared to be an attempt to convince Baldoni to concede. 

Screenshots of text messages between the "It End with Us" co-stars show that Swift and Reynolds' praise had the desired effect, but in his lawsuit Baldoni stated that he felt coerced into going along with Lively's script — especially since she openly acknowledged that they would support her no matter what. As a result, "The message could not have been clearer. Baldoni was not just dealing with Lively. He was also facing Lively's 'dragons,' two of the most influential and wealthy celebrities in the world, who were not afraid to make things very difficult for him," (via Page Six).

Justin Baldoni's defamation lawsuit against Blake Lively comes after she initially filed a complaint against him for sexual harassment and retaliation, but the "Jane the Virgin" star's team countered that his co-lead invented the allegations to distract the public from Lively's own litany of controversial moments. The "Shallows" star was accused of being completely tone deaf while promoting "It Ends with Us," a movie about domestic violence, when she told fans to "grab your friends and wear your florals and head out to see it," (via Facebook). Around the same time, a cringey resurfaced interview with Lively in which she was unashamedly rude also started making the rounds, evoking even more criticism.

Baldoni's defamation lawsuit, which has now put Taylor Swift and Lively's friendship squarely in the spotlight, was dubbed pathetic by the "Gossip Girl" alum's team. In a statement to Yahoo! Entertainment, they professed, "[This lawsuit] is another chapter in the abuser playbook. This is an age-old story: A woman speaks up with concrete evidence of sexual harassment and retaliation and the abuser attempts to turn the tables on the victim." The outspoken actor's team added, "The strategy of attacking the woman is desperate, it does not refute the evidence in Ms. Lively's complaint, and it will fail."

Baldoni's lawyer, Bryan Freedman, clapped back with a statement of his own, claiming to have irrefutable evidence that Lively orchestrated a campaign to destroy Baldoni's career in order to distract from her own crumbling public image. Freedman also accused the "Age of Adaline" star of doctoring some of the so-called evidence of Baldoni's alleged social media smear campaign against her, warning that they are in possession of all original correspondence between all involved parties and are willing to share it.