Do the newly unsealed Lively/Baldoni documents indicate that Taylor Swift and her team lied?

[Follow-up article linked here]

When it first came out that Taylor Swift had been caught up in the Justin Baldoni/Blake Lively controversy in early 2025, her team had a clear response: Swift was acting as Lively’s friend and was not trying to influence or control decisions related to the movie. For context on the situation, from the Daily Mail:

Justin alleged that the singer - who was not directly named in the lawsuit but whose name was included in text screenshots to accompany his claims - made him feel like he 'needed to comply with Blake's direction for the script' after she showed up at a meeting they were having and began to excessively 'praise' her writing.

The court documents relating to those text screenshots have now been released.

Many of the reactions on Reddit are… not exactly favorable toward Swift. Here’s one example that contains most of the negative sentiment I’ve seen:

But DO the documents indicate that Taylor Swift and her team lied?

Let’s take a look at what they said before the court documents were unsealed and the alignment between that narrative and what the documents show.

In the January 17, 2025, Daily Mail exclusive, a source had the following to say about Swift’s involvement (or lack thereof):

‘Taylor is proud of the film because her music was featured in it, which gave her a sense of involvement, though she wasn’t fully aware of the extent of the project’s developments,’ they said.

‘She is confused by the claims in the suit, as her connection to Blake is purely a friendship, with no interest in influencing or controlling Blake’s projects.’

The source insisted that Taylor did not purposely plan to be there during the meeting.

Instead, they said she was simply coming over to hang out with her pal but arrived while the meeting - which was supposed to have been wrapped up - was still going.

‘She finds Justin’s interpretation of the encounter perplexing, and those close to her suspect she’s being drawn into the situation as a means to target Blake,’ the insider continued.

‘This was the first time that Taylor ever met Justin. She had no idea who he was and Taylor was simply being polite. She was polite to him as she is to everyone she meets.’

In May 2025, Swift's team shared the following (source: CBS News):

What’s in the court documents (obtained from Reddit):

This first screenshot covers the narrative that Swift read Lively’s rewrite of a movie scene and praised it in a meeting with Baldoni. It establishes that Swift did participate in this meeting. What it doesn’t establish is that Swift knew that Baldoni would be there or that she knew Lively intended her to read the scene so that she could defend it to Baldoni.

The information in this does not conflict with this quote from the Daily Mail:

The source insisted that Taylor did not purposely plan to be there during the meeting.

Instead, they said she was simply coming over to hang out with her pal but arrived while the meeting - which was supposed to have been wrapped up - was still going.

‘She finds Justin’s interpretation of the encounter perplexing, and those close to her suspect she’s being drawn into the situation as a means to target Blake,’ the insider continued.

And it doesn’t show that Swift’s intent was to make Baldoni “feel like he ‘needed to comply with Blake’s direction for the script’”. Lively’s text to Swift after the meeting certainly comes across as though Lively could have believed Swift to have been doing this, but Lively’s interpretation doesn’t equate to pre-planned, intentional interference. That text could be considered to conflict with this:

‘She had no idea who he was and Taylor was simply being polite. She was polite to him as she is to everyone she meets.’

However. We know nothing of how that discussion between Baldoni and Swift actually went or how polite (or not) it was. Just Lively’s interpretation. A third party’s interpretation does not dictate an individual’s intent.

And it’s Swift’s intentions that she and her team clarified in their narrative. (These documents and texts are new to us, but it’s almost certain that Swift’s team had the contents when responding last year.) There is no denial that she was there. It’s why she was there and what for that they countered. And their narrative isn’t inconsistent with the court document.

Without any intent, the statement that Swift “was not involved in any… creative decision” holds. Passive commentary interpreted as pressure by a third party doesn’t equal intent to be involved in a creative decision.

The information about Lively wanting Swift to read the scene because Baldoni was still there when Swift was on her way to Lively’s apartment came from Lively in an explanation of how Swift came to be at that meeting, talking about Lively’s rewritten scene. There’s nothing in this that suggests that Lively told Swift that Baldoni was there or that this was her intention behind sending the script.

I can see how Swift could have read the scene on the way and gotten into a discussion praising and defending it when she arrived at Lively’s apartment, without, as the Daily Mail source stated, intending to influence or control the project. At least, I can see how Swift and her team could credibly present this situation.

(Note: Everything written here is commentary and speculation - we don’t know what happened, I’m just looking at the narratives and considering the strategy).

There could be more texts and documents that haven’t been unsealed (or that I hadn’t seen at the time I wrote this) that change things, but for now, this aspect of the narrative remains supported, and Swift’s team could credibly reiterate it with a focus on how Baldoni and Lively are both attributing intent to Swift that wasn’t there. Which brings me to the next point: Swift and Lively’s friendship.

Bitches and tiny violins

This screenshot shows a text Swift sent Lively before the release of the New York Times article discussing Baldoni’s team’s alleged smear campaign against Lively:

Does that text give a little ‘mean girl’ energy? Yes. But it’s out of context, so we don’t know what Lively had told Swift about the article or the situation at this point. And it doesn’t conflict with this narrative:

‘She [Swift] is confused by the claims in the suit, as her connection to Blake is purely a friendship, with no interest in influencing or controlling Blake’s projects.’

And neither does this, in my opinion:

Calling someone your friend doesn’t like a ‘bitch’, talking about being an ally in a situation where your friend has told you she’s having issues with someone, critiquing the strategy of the ‘adversary’… those things can all be interpreted as being a good friend in response to a friend’s bad situation.

It’s been widely reported that Lively wanted power over the movie. Swift mentioning “more power over the film” here fits that narrative, but it’s also not inconsistent with the narrative that Swift herself had “no interest in influencing or controlling Blake’s project”.

It’s also not inconsistent with the narrative that Swift “feels she was used by Blake Lively in her war with Justin Baldoni” and “resents Blake calling her one of her ‘dragons’ and leveraging her name”.

These texts, Lively’s text to Swift after the meeting, the involvement of Swift in the lawsuit, Lively referring to Swift as her ‘dragon’… these all support the narrative that Swift distanced herself from Lively because she was being misrepresented. Not “throwing her [Lively] under the bus” but perhaps genuinely distancing herself because Lively had mentally placed Swift in a more influential role than she had in reality. It’s entirely conceivable that Lively used Swift to try to exert power over Baldoni but didn’t tell Swift this. So Swift believed her role to be that of a supportive friend until it became otherwise in the lawsuit and media narratives.

(Again, just my interpretation of how I think Swift and her team can plausibly maintain their narrative, not an opinion on what actually happened since we don’t know.)

Swift’s narrative isn’t compromised… yet

It’s too soon to say that she and her team lied.

Based on the screenshots here (which are the only documents available/that I had seen at the time of writing) and the documented responses of Swift’s team to her involvement last year, it doesn’t appear that the newly unsealed documents massively contradict Swift’s narrative. My prediction is that they will reiterate exactly the same narrative, separating Swift’s actions from the intent being ascribed to her by Lively/Baldoni.

Unless further information comes to light that clearly demonstrates intent…

(Written on January 20, 2026. As this is a fast-moving story, most of what is written here could conceivably be completely incorrect and/or irrelevant by the time you read it, depending on what comes out next…)