Blake Lively has asked the court to deny Justin Baldoni‘s attempt to depose Taylor Swift after his legal team recently claimed the singer had agreed to sit for one.
In a new filing, the actress argued that her “It Ends With Us” co-star waited too long to make this move, noting that he failed to do so within the previous months and that the alleged timing of the deposition falls after the close of discovery.
Justin Baldoni and Blake Lively are currently embroiled in a sexual harassment lawsuit, which Lively filed against Baldoni following their work together on the film.
Blake Lively Urges Court To Deny Justin Baldoni More Time To Depose Taylor Swift
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Less than 24 hours after Justin Baldoni’s team filed documents claiming Taylor Swift had agreed to sit for a deposition, Blake Lively fired back with a response, urging the court to grant the actor any more time to depose the singer.
In her own filing on September 12, Lively’s legal team argued that Baldoni had delayed too long in seeking the deposition, pointing out that “discovery has been ongoing for more than six months.”
They further claimed Baldoni’s lawyers didn’t reach out to Swift’s representatives until earlier this week, and even if she had agreed, the proposed dates of October 20–25 fall outside the court’s discovery deadline.
“At any point over the past six months, [Baldoni’s team] could have noticed a deposition, served a subpoena, and negotiated an agreeable time and place for this deposition. But they did not,” read the filing, per Us Weekly.
It further read, “Now, long after dates and locations for all other party and third-party witnesses have been negotiated and agreed to [they have] come to this Court and demand the right to take this deposition — and this deposition alone — more than three weeks after the close of fact discovery and ten days after the parties are due to exchange expert reports.”
The Actress Claimed Justin Baldoni Disrespected Taylor Swift’s Privacy
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In her filing, Lively also blasted Baldoni, arguing that his push for a deposition at this stage showed a “lack of diligence” and a disregard for Swift’s “privacy and schedule.”
She further claimed that the actor intended to use the deposition to create a “media spectacle in this matter,” seemingly referencing how Baldoni and his team dragged Swift into the lawsuit by repeatedly mentioning her in court documents and issuing a subpoena to depose her months before but later withdrawing it.
“Such a showing would be expected for any deposition occurring after the close of discovery, especially so for a third party, but is even more relevant for this third party, whom [Baldoni’s team] have consistently sought to use to generate a media spectacle in this matter,” the filing also read.
The Pop Star’s Lawyer Claims She Never Agreed To Be Deposed
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Swift’s lawyer has since slammed the claim from Baldoni’s camp that she has agreed to be deposed in his ongoing legal feud with her former pal, Lively.
According to the Daily Mail, the lawyer noted that the singer will only participate if compelled by law to do so, stressing that she has no “material role” in the former co-stars’ court case.
A letter from Swift’s legal team read in part: “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 October 20 if the parties were able to work out their disputes.”
Blake Lively Won Her Motion To Seal Her Deposition
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Ahead of the trial in May 2026, Baldoni’s defense has been suffering some losses, with one of the latest being a judge’s decision to cut Lively’s deposition from the court docket, per Deadline.
“The Wayfarer Parties’ attachment of the entire, nearly 300-page deposition—after citing only two pages of it in the Letter—served no proper litigation purpose and instead appears to have been intended to burden Lively (and as a result, the Court) and to invite public speculation and scandal,” said Judge Lewis Liman, refrencing Baldoni and his fellow defendants that make up the Wayfarer Parties.
Liman had made the order in response to Lively’s motion to keep her deposition sealed, in which he also claimed that the Wayfarer Parties failed to show the entire deposition was relevant to their case, nor could they.
He added, The conclusion is inescapable that the Wayfarer Parties filed gratuitous amounts of irrelevant pages so that, if Lively moved for continued sealing of the irrelevant pages, the Wayfarer Parties could then use Lively’s response for their own public-relations purposes.”
Justin Baldoni’s Defamation Countersuit Against Blake Lively Was Dismissed In June
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Another setback for Baldoni came when Judge Liman dismissed his countersuit against Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds.
After Lively sued him late last year, Baldoni filed a defamation countersuit in January seeking $400 million in damages.
But in June, that case was dismissed, along with a separate defamation suit he had brought against The New York Times over its coverage of Lively’s sexual harassment claims.
While the judge noted Baldoni’s legal team could amend and refile certain claims, he ultimately failed to do so.
“Instead of revising the existing claims, our clients will be pursuing additional legal options that are available to us,” Baldoni’s lawyer, Bryan Freedman, told People magazine in June.