Newly unsealed text messages between Taylor Swift and Blake Lively shed light on the state of their friendship in 2024, as Lively began to take legal action against her It Ends With Us director and costar, Justin Baldoni.<\/p>\n
Lively accused Baldoni in a December 2024 lawsuit of sexual misconduct and of orchestrating a smear campaign against her on the set of the Colleen Hoover film adaptation. The he-said, she-said drama dominated headlines for more than a year afterward, and Baldoni filed a countersuit that was eventually dismissed<\/a>.<\/p>\n Swift, Lively\u2019s longtime friend, had been a key figure in the press, with Baldoni\u2019s team accusing Lively of using the powerful pop star\u2019s influence to gain more control over the It Ends With Us production. In May 2025, Baldoni dropped a subpoena<\/a> against Swift.<\/p>\n Fans have questioned whether Lively and Swift are still friends after the Baldoni drama. The two women,\u00a0who often appeared together at social outings, have not been spotted together publicly since October 2024 nor spoken about the state of their friendship.<\/p>\n Now, over a year after the case began, the newly released texts reveal more about their relationship at the time the lawsuit launched and how they felt about Baldoni.<\/p>\n What the text messages say about Lively and Swift\u2019s friendship\u00a0<\/p>\n The newly released text messages<\/a> between Swift and Lively, from Dec. 4 and Dec. 5, 2024, paint a picture of a friendship strained by Lively\u2019s focus on the case against Baldoni.<\/p>\n In an exchange on Dec. 4, 2024 \u2014 which came after a summer of negative press<\/a> about Lively during the It Ends With Us press tour and weeks before the bombshell New York Times article<\/a> that revealed her complaint against Baldoni \u2014\u00a0Lively wrote to check in with Swift, asking whether everything between them was OK.<\/p>\n \u201cI felt like a bad friend lately because I was such a sad sack who only talked about my own s**t for months,\u201d Lively wrote. \u201cYou were generous to not only be the key person there for me during all of it, but also to let me off the hook for being so in it. But I still have a feeling something may not be right.\u201d<\/p>\n Swift, at the time, was nearing the end of her globe-spanning Eras Tour.<\/p>\n Swift wrote back to Lively, telling her, \u201cNo you’re not wrong, but it’s also not a big deal.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI think I’m just exhausted in every avenue of my life and in recent months had been feeling a little bit of a shift in the way you talk to me,\u201d she continued. \u201cYes there has been a lot of the Justin stuff but I’ve been through things like this before and know how all consuming it is. It’s more like … and I feel really bad saying anything about this because your texts have been so nice in their intent but your last few … it’s felt like I was reading a mass corporate email sent to 200 employees. You said the word ‘we’ like 18 times. And it feels awful to be in any way critical of any way you process what you’ve been going through but I just kinda miss my funny, dark, normal-speaking friend who talks to me as herself.\u201d<\/p>\n Lively apologized to Swift, noting that she was feeling \u201cdigitally paranoid\u201d and that she was speaking that way out of fear that what she writes could become public. She also said the situation had taken a toll on her relationships.<\/p>\n \u201cThe thing that spooked me most in all this though, wasn’t the bad guys being bad guys, it was the good guys, my lifelong friends \u2014 allies to women\u2014 who quietly dipped,\u201d she wrote. \u201cAnd so I’m probably being over the top with my friends who stayed because I’ve never felt more alone.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cPoint is, I’m being a stupid paranoid weirdo and felt it but didn’t know where or how or when, so thank you for telling me and for saying I don’t need to apologize and for not making it a big deal,\u201d Lively continued. \u201cBut I am sorry. To you. And I’m sorry to me and to our kids. F*** that guy and f*** his whole gaggle of supervillains.\u201d<\/p>\n What Swift said about Baldoni in the messages<\/p>\n On Dec. 5, Swift sent Lively a photo of a People magazine Instagram post featuring the headline, \u201cJustin Baldoni Reveals He Was Sexually Traumatized By an Ex-Girlfriend When He Was \u2018Hoping to Save Myself for Marriage.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI think this bitch knows something is coming because he’s gotten out his tiny violin,\u201d Swift wrote alongside the image.<\/p>\n The text message adds credence to fan speculation that Swift\u2019s song \u201cCancelled!\u201d from her 2025 album The Life of a Showgirl is about Lively getting \u201ccancelled\u201d over the Baldoni case. On the song, Swift sings, \u201cDid you make a joke only a man could? \/ Were you just too smug for your own good? \/ Or bring a tiny violin to a knife fight? Baby, that all ends tonight.\u201d<\/p>\n Swift and Lively went on to discuss an event held by the women\u2019s nonprofit Vital Voices, during which Baldoni would be honored with its Voices of Solidarity award. The organization rescinded it<\/a> after Lively\u2019s complaint against Baldoni went public.<\/p>\n \u201cCan you imagine feeling as confident as these predators that you’re going to always get away with it. Him accepting an award as an ally for women,\u201d Lively wrote.<\/p>\n \u201cIt’s like a horror film no one knows is taking place,\u201d Swift replied.<\/p>\n