Ruled

A federal judge has denied Justin Baldoni’s last-minute bid to depose Taylor Swift as he prepares for an upcoming trial over Blake Lively’s claims she was sexually harassed and retaliated against during the filming of It Ends With Us.

In an order handed down Friday, U.S. District Judge Lewis Liman ruled that Baldoni and his co-defendants at Wayfarer Studios simply waited too long to seek the sit-down and missed their chance. The judge did, however, grant a 10-day extension for Lively to take the depositions of Baldoni and two others. He said the defendants dragged their feet in producing the requested documents, so Lively and her lawyers deserved the extra time to prepare. In the case of Swift, the judge said Baldoni and Wayfarer failed to show “good cause” to justify a similar reprieve.

“The only justification [Baldoni and the Wayfarer parties] have provided for the extension is their assertion that Swift’s preexisting professional obligations now prevent her from appearing for a deposition prior to October 20, 2025,” Judge Liman wrote. “Importantly, however, the Wayfarer parties have provided no discussion of when they began attempting to schedule the deposition. Discovery has been ongoing in this case for approximately six months.”

The judge noted that Baldoni previously requested Swift’s deposition in May 2025 before ultimately withdrawing that subpoena. “They have offered no evidence that they have served a renewed subpoena on Swift. Thus, at most, the Wayfarer parties have demonstrated that scheduling the deposition now presents logistical difficulties; that does not answer the question of why the deposition could not have been conducted earlier,” he wrote. “Having failed to demonstrate appropriate diligence, the requested extension is denied.”

The judge’s order followed after Baldoni’s lawyer, Ellyn S. Garofalo, claimed in a letter to the court filed Thursday that Swift had “agreed” to appear for deposition but was unable to do so before Oct. 20. The letter requested an extension of the Sept. 30 discovery deadline to accommodate Swift’s schedule.

On Friday, Swift’s lawyer stepped into the fray to set the record straight, refuting the claim that his client had agreed to answer questions under oath.

“As counsel for the parties know, since the inception of this matter, we have consistently maintained that my client has no material role in this action,” Swift’s lawyer J. Douglas Baldridge wrote in a letter to the judge filed in Manhattan federal court. He was clear that Swift “did not agree to a deposition,” but if she was “forced,” she had informed Baldoni’s camp that her schedule was too busy to accommodate it before October 20. Baldridge didn’t explain what the conflict was, but Swift has been a little busy lately, getting engaged to Travis Kelce and preparing for the release of her new album, The Life of a Showgirl, set to debut Oct. 3.

Lively, 38, is suing Baldoni, 41, and Wayfarer Studios with claims Baldoni subjected her to “disturbing” sexual harassment during production of It Ends With Us and then engaged in a retaliatory campaign to “eviscerate” her credibility. Lively alleges the harassment included an incident during the filming of a slow dance where no sound was recorded. She says Baldoni improvised a scene where he “leaned forward and slowly dragged his lips from her ear and down her neck as he said, ‘It smells so good.’” Lively alleges Baldoni also tried to add a graphic sex scene where their characters would climax together on their wedding night. She says Baldoni then “intrusively” asked her if she and her husband, the actor Ryan Reynolds, climaxed simultaneously during intercourse.

Swift was initially ensnared in the fight when Baldoni filed a dueling defamation lawsuit against Lively that included claims Swift was present during a pivotal meeting at Lively’s Tribeca penthouse that involved Lively’s efforts to make changes to the movie script.

In a separate response letter filed Friday, before the judge’s ruling, one of Lively’s lawyers blasted Baldoni’s camp for an “astounding” lack of respect for “Swift’s privacy and schedule.” The lawyer urged the court to deny Baldoni’s request for the late deposition.

“The Wayfarer defendants have repeatedly sought to bring Ms. Swift into this litigation to fuel their relentless media strategy. In this latest effort, the Wayfarer defendants assert – though, notably, without evidence – that Ms. Swift has supposedly ‘agreed’ to sit for a deposition sometime between October 20-25, some three weeks after the close of fact discovery in this matter,” Lively’s lawyer Michael J. Gottlieb wrote in his opposition.

“Ms. Swift is someone whose calendar should be presumed to be packed with professional obligations for months in advance,” he continued. “At any point over the past six months, the Wayfarer defendants could have noticed a deposition, served a subpoena, and negotiated an agreeable time and place for this deposition. But they did not. Instead, the Wayfarer Defendants previously noticed Ms. Swift’s deposition in May 2025, accompanied by a barrage of press stories covering the same, only to withdraw that subpoena to much fanfare.”

Gottlieb claimed Baldoni and Wayfarer did “not even attempt to explain their need for [Swift’s] deposition.” He further accused them of trying “to generate a media spectacle in this matter.”

Swift had a very public friendship with Lively prior to the legal war, but they have not been seen together in months. In his court filings, Baldoni claimed that Swift — originally identified only as “megacelebrity” — supported Lively’s edits to the movie script, as did Reynolds. Baldoni said after the penthouse meeting, Lively sent him a text message referring to Swift and Reynolds as her “dragons.” Baldoni said he interpreted the message as a suggestion Lively could tap Swift to “make things very difficult for him.”

“If you ever get around to watching Game of Thrones, you’ll appreciate that I’m Khaleesi, and like her, I happen to have a few dragons,” the purported text from Lively read. “For better or worse, but usually better. Because my dragons also protect those I fight for. So really we all benefit from those gorgeous monsters of mine. You will too, I can promise you.”

Back in May, a rep for Swift slammed Baldoni’s initial attempts to subpoena the singer. “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,” the rep previously told Rolling Stone. The rep said the subpoena was “designed to use Taylor Swift’s name to draw public interest by creating tabloid clickbait instead of focusing on the facts of the case.”

Lively’s battle with Baldoni first made headlines last year when The New York Times published a Dec. 21 story titled “‘We Can Bury Anyone’: Inside a Hollywood Smear Machine.” The story revealed Lively had filed a precursor complaint against Baldoni with the California Civil Rights Department.