Court filings have shed light on the evolving friendship between Taylor Swift and Blake Lively.

Amid Blake Lively’s intensifying legal dispute with her It Ends With Us co-director and co-star Justin Baldoni, the Gossip Girl actress expressed a desire to improve her friendship with the pop sensation, who found herself inadvertently entangled in the publicized legal saga.

Swift, on her part, reflected on a noticeable change in her bond with Lively, lamenting the absence of her “funny, dark, and down-to-earth” companion.

Blake Lively worried about her friendship with Taylor Swift 

The purported exchanges between the 36-year-old pop icon and the 38-year-old actress surfaced in documents unsealed during Lively’s lawsuit against Baldoni, where she has accused him of sexual misconduct and retaliatory actions. These revelations emerged in advance of a summary judgment hearing set for January 22.

In a December 2024 message, Lively expressed regret to Swift for involving her in the turmoil of her personal affairs.

“I have no reason to ask, but I donno, I’ve been feeling like I should… is everything OK?” she wrote, according to People. “I felt like a bad friend lately because I was such a sad sack who only talked about my own sh*t for months. You 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.”

Lively added that she always wanted to “be a better friend.” 

“I know how busy and taxed you are – physically, emotionally, practically, so I don’t expect any more from you ever,” Lively’s message to Swift, who was wrapping up her Eras tour, continued. “Just want to make sure all is good.”

‘Karma’ singer said ‘Gossip Girl’ star’s texts felt like ‘a mass corporate email’

Swift replied to Lively with a candid message of her own. She told her friend she was “not wrong” but it’s “not a big deal.”

“I 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,” confessed the Grammy winner. Swift had spent the past months criss-crossing the globe while also attending many of her boyfriend Travis Kelce’s NFL games. “Yes there has been a lot of Justin stuff but I’ve been through things like this before and I know how all consuming it is.” (In 2017, Swift was involved in a high-profile sexual assault and defamation case with a Denver radio DJ.)

“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,” Swift continued. “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… And I know you feel attacked from all sides for ridiculous reasons so you’re feeling like you have to overly explain things… but. It’s me! That’s just caused a little distance. And you don’t need to apologize. Just come back please.”

In her reply, Lively admitted that the situation with Baldoni had made her “digitally paranoid.” She thanked Swift for pointing out the weird tone of her messages. 

“I’ve felt so deeply misunderstood that I don’t trust my judgement of myself anymore,” she wrote. “This f*cking guy and what he did to me gave me an identity crisis. Legitimately.”

How is Taylor Swift connected to the Blake Lively-Justin Baldoni lawsuit?

In addition to lending her friend a supportive ear, Swift has been pulled into Baldoni and Lively’s nasty legal battle. In May 2025, his lawyers attempted to subpoena her in his countersuit against Lively. They claimed that Lively used her friendship with the superstar to gain more control over It Ends With Us during its troubled production. Swift’s team shut down that effort, arguing she had not direct involvement in the movie.  Swift has said she was only tangentially connected to It Ends With Us through the use of one of her songs on the soundtrack. Baldoni’s suit has since been dismissed.  

“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,” a spokesperson told People. “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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