Blake Lively’s unsealed texts to Taylor Swift call Justin Baldoni a ‘doofus’ who ‘thinks he’s a writer now’

Key Points

• Newly unsealed excerpts of text messages show Blake Lively’s candid appraisals of her It Ends With Us director and costar Justin Baldoni that she sent to pal Taylor Swift.

• In some of the messages to Swift, Lively referred to Baldoni as a “clown” and a “doofus” who “thinks he’s a writer now.”

• Swift is not named in the suit Lively brought against Baldoni in December 2024, but Baldoni’s legal team attempted — and failed — to subpoena her in 2025.

Blake Lively has made relatively few public comments about her experience with Justin Baldoni, her It Ends With Us director and costar, ever since their lives were engulfed in an ongoing legal battle that kicked off shortly after the film’s 2024 premiere. But in private, Lively was prolific in her criticisms of the filmmaker while they shot the romantic drama.

A newly and only partially unsealed document obtained by PEOPLE includes several excerpts of messages Lively allegedly sent to her longtime friend Taylor Swift while in production on It Ends With Us. Lively referred to Baldoni as a “clown” and as “this doofus director of my movie” who “thinks he’s a writer now.”

Baldoni’s legal team alleges that Lively asked Swift to sign off on a revised version of the It Ends With Us script “without having read it” as she was on her way to Lively’s home, where Baldoni was present.

“I’ll do anything for you !!” Swift allegedly replied. After the meeting, Lively then texted Swift to tell her she was “so epically heroic today” and that she “recapped every moment” to husband Ryan Reynolds.

Nicole Rivelli/Sony

Justin Baldoni and Blake Lively in ‘It Ends With Us’

“I kept remembering stuff- You making s— up about me and lenses. And referring to yourself as my doll. This clown falling for all of it. But also resisting it,” Lively wrote to Swift in excerpts of the alleged messages. “You are the worlds absolute greatest friend ever.”

Entertainment Weekly has reached out to representatives for Swift, Lively, and Baldoni.

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This is only the latest salvo in a war Lively launched in December 2024, when she filed a complaint with the California Civil Rights Department against Baldoni, accusing him of sexual harassment and of organizing a smear campaign to spoil her public image. She followed that up with a lawsuit filed in New York federal court against Baldoni and his production company, Wayfarer Studios.

Baldoni has maintained his innocence and filed his own $400 million lawsuit against Lively and Reynolds, claiming civil extortion, defamation, breach of contract, and invasion of privacy. That countersuit was dismissed in June.

Steph Chambers/Getty

Taylor Swift and Blake Lively at the Super Bowl in 2024

Though Swift and Lively’s well-documented friendship dates back to 2015, the “Cruel Summer” superstar has vigorously maintained her distance from the It Ends With Us legal battle.

After one of Baldoni’s attorneys sent Swift a subpoena Last May, requesting her testimony in the upcoming trial, a representative for Swift hit back hard, claiming in a statement shared with EW, “Taylor Swift never set foot on the set of this movie, she was not involved in any casting or creative decisions, she did not score the film, she never saw an edit or made any notes on the film, she did not even see It Ends With Us until weeks after its public release, and was traveling around the globe during 2023 and 2024 headlining the biggest tour in history.”

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