Blake Lively’s Lawyer Slams Justin Baldoni Bringing Ryan Reynolds and Taylor Swift Into USD 400M Legal Battle; Here’s What He Said

Blake Lively’s lawyer, Mike Gottlieb, has criticized Justin Baldoni’s legal team over their reported plan to subpoena Lively’s husband, Ryan Reynolds, and her close friend Taylor Swift, in an upcoming trial scheduled for March 9, 2026. Speaking to PEOPLE on May 8, Gottlieb questioned the relevance of involving celebrities in a case that centers around serious workplace allegations.

“It’s completely unclear what claims or defenses, in the case any of these celebrities…have any relevance to at all,” Gottlieb said. Reports from April suggested that anyone in the inner circles of Lively or Baldoni, including Reynolds and Swift, could receive subpoenas during the pretrial discovery period.

Baldoni’s legal team has accused Reynolds of mocking Baldoni through a character named Nicepool in the 2024 film Deadpool & Wolverine, calling it a 'thinly veiled dig.' Reynolds and Marvel have denied the claim. Court documents also suggest that Swift and Reynolds may have offered input on a rooftop scene in It Ends With Us, based on text exchanges with Lively.

However, Gottlieb dismissed these points, saying, “This is a case about what happened to Blake Lively when she raised claims of sexual harassment on the set. It’s not a case about how songs were chosen for the movie. It’s not a case about fictional Marvel characters in Deadpool movies.”

He added, “You can’t just go around subpoenaing people because they’re famous and you think it will generate a bunch of headlines. And the federal courts don’t tolerate that kind of behavior.”

Gottlieb warned that involving high-profile witnesses could lead to a media circus, adding that they did not expect the trial to become a spectacle featuring every celebrity who may have ever spoken with Blake Lively or Ryan Reynolds.

In response, Baldoni’s lawyer Bryan Freedman told PEOPLE, “Although obviously uncomfortable for the Lively parties, the truth is not a distraction… Blake was the one who brought her high-profile friends into this situation.” Freedman further claimed, “Ryan’s involvement is very well documented… Was Disney actually complicit in Ryan using shareholder revenues to further a personal grudge?”

While Lively’s team aimed to limit celebrity involvement in the trial, Gottlieb confirmed that Blake Lively is expected to testify. He said they anticipate her being a witness at her own trial and added that others who witnessed incidents on set would also provide testimony.

The legal battle began when Blake Lively filed a sexual harassment lawsuit against Justin Baldoni in December 2024. In response, Baldoni filed a USD 400 million defamation lawsuit in January 2025, alleging that Lively attempted to cast him as a 'real-life villain' to divert attention from her endorsement deals.

Lively’s team stated that Sony had later asked her to oversee the final cut of It Ends With Us, which went on to perform well. Her spokesperson said that Baldoni’s response to the harassment allegations was to blame the victim and added that the strategy of attacking a woman in such cases was desperate and bound to fail.

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