Taylor Swift’s Leaked Texts Blow Up Blake Lively-Baldoni Feud

The Moment

So much for staying out of the drama. Newly unsealed legal documents around the It Ends with Us movie battle have spilled a very specific kind of tea: Taylor Swift privately calling director-star Justin Baldoni “this bitch” and mocking him for getting out his “tiny violin” in a text to Blake Lively.

The texts, dated May and December 2024, surfaced in Blake Lively’s deposition and related filings that are now part of a broader dispute over which version of the film should win out. In those messages, Taylor isn’t some clueless pal wandering into a tense meeting. She’s actively strategizing with Blake about how much power her presence and support give Blake over the film.

In one exchange, Taylor tells Blake that if Justin were “strategic,” he’d keep Taylor out of the trailer because her association gives Blake more leverage. Blake, for her part, gushes after a penthouse showdown that Taylor was “epically heroic,” calling Baldoni a “clown” who fell for their approach. Blake tells Taylor she is the “world’s absolute greatest friend ever.”

Other messages in the filings show Blake and husband Ryan Reynolds trying to rally Hollywood friends – Matt Damon and his wife Lucy, Ben Affleck, Anna Wintour, Bradley Cooper – to back Blake’s version of the movie over Baldoni’s. In one text, Reynolds allegedly refers to Baldoni as a “malignantly vein (sic), sociopathic FAUXminist,” and says he “cannot believe he hasn’t gone to jail,” while Blake describes “wild HR issues on set.”

By May 30, 2024, according to the documents, the president of Sony Motion Pictures told Blake that Baldoni’s cut of the film tested better with audiences. Blake still replied that she, author Colleen Hoover and Taylor were “full steam ahead” on her cut.

All of this stands in sharp contrast to the earlier narrative from Taylor’s camp that she’d been blindsided and “set up” by Blake, and that she supposedly didn’t take sides in the conflict.

The Take

I’ll be honest: this reads less like a legal dispute and more like the world’s most aggressive group chat accidentally dumped into the court record.

On one hand, this is very normal human behavior. Who among us hasn’t vented about a co-worker to a close friend, maybe said something snarky we’d never want in print? The difference here is the co-worker is the director of a major studio film, the friends are A-list power players, and the venting is now evidence.

Taylor’s whole brand, especially for older fans, is about loyalty and rising above the mess. But these texts show her as what she also very much is: a fiercely protective friend who will ride at dawn if you come for her people. The problem is, when you operate at her level of influence, “riding for a friend” starts looking a lot like lobbying against someone’s career.

Blake and Ryan’s messages about Baldoni are even harsher. Calling him a “sociopathic FAUXminist” and hinting at jail in a private text might have felt like blowing off steam in the moment. On paper, in a legal filing, it’s brutal. And those “wild HR issues on set” Blake allegedly mentions? That’s a huge claim that, so far, lives only in her texts, not in any official finding the public has seen.

The whole thing is like discovering the inspirational PTA moms at school also run a secret burn book. You recognize the emotions, but the tone is jarring next to the public “we’re all about kindness” image.

There’s another twist here: usually it’s women in Hollywood being whispered about as “difficult” or “chaotic” on set. This time, it’s a group of powerful women and their famous spouses painting a male director as the problem. That doesn’t automatically make them wrong – but when one side is armed with global fandoms and fashion-magazine Rolodexes, you do start to wonder where healthy collaboration ends and a high-gloss pile-on begins.

Receipts

Confirmed:

• Unsealed deposition transcripts and legal filings from early 2026 include screenshots and descriptions of texts between Blake Lively and Taylor Swift from May and December 2024, in which Taylor mocks Justin Baldoni (“this bitch” with a “tiny violin”) and discusses how her presence affects Blake’s leverage over the film.
• The same filings describe Blake praising Taylor as “epically heroic” after a penthouse meeting with Baldoni, calling him a “clown” in her messages.
• Texts attributed to Ryan Reynolds in those documents show him using harsh language about Baldoni, including calling him a “malignantly vein (sic), sociopathic FAUXminist.”
• Other messages quoted in the filings show Blake reaching out to Matt Damon, Ben Affleck, Anna Wintour and Bradley Cooper for support of her preferred cut of It Ends with Us.
• The documents say that by May 30, 2024, Sony’s motion picture chief told Blake that Baldoni’s cut of the film had tested better with audiences.

Unverified / Alleged:

• Claims of “wild HR issues on set” and suggestions Baldoni has “no sense of boundaries or shame” come from private texts quoted in the legal materials and reflect personal opinions, not established findings.
• The earlier storyline that Taylor was “set up” or fully unaware of Baldoni’s presence at the New York penthouse appears in descriptions of her team’s position, but the new texts complicate that narrative and show active involvement in Blake’s strategy.
• There is no public record, as of the filings described, that Baldoni has faced criminal charges tied to any of the behavior hinted at in those texts.

Backstory (For Casual Readers)

If you’re just tuning in: It Ends with Us is the hit romance novel by Colleen Hoover that exploded on BookTok and beyond. A film adaptation was announced with Blake Lively starring and Justin Baldoni – known from Jane the Virgin and as the director of Five Feet Apart – both directing and co-starring. Taylor Swift, a close friend of Blake and Ryan Reynolds, has long orbited their projects, from Easter eggs in her music to cameos from their kids’ names.

Somewhere along the way, creative differences reportedly turned into a full-on war over whose cut of the film should win out: Baldoni’s version, which the studio says tested well with audiences, or a rival vision championed by Blake. That behind-the-scenes struggle is what these newly unsealed texts are shining a very bright light on.

What’s Next

The legal record is described as “long,” and only some of it has trickled into public view so far. Expect more documents and testimony to surface, which could either back up or undercut the more explosive claims about the set and about Baldoni’s behavior.

Things to watch for now:

• Whether Justin Baldoni or his representatives issue a detailed public response to the language used about him in these texts.
• If the studio or any involved producers step in with a clearer explanation of who controls the final cut of It Ends with Us, and why Baldoni’s version reportedly tested better.
• Any on-the-record statement from Taylor Swift or Blake Lively that moves beyond careful PR talking points and addresses the leaked language head-on.
• How fans react if the finished film – whichever cut wins – lands in theaters under the shadow of this group-chat-turned-court-exhibit.

Hollywood friendships have always involved a mix of loyalty, strategy and ego. The difference now is that every spicy aside lives forever on a server somewhere, just waiting for the day a lawyer hits “print.”

Sources: Unsealed deposition transcripts and related legal filings in the It Ends with Us dispute (filed and reported January 2026); prior studio and casting announcements for the It Ends with Us film adaptation (2022-2023).

Your turn: When private texts like this go public, do you see it as stars being “exposed,” or just getting caught doing the kind of venting everyone does behind closed doors?