Two days after a judge tossed out Justin Baldoni’s $400 million defamation suit against Blake Lively, the actress is now ramping up for the next stage of the battle. On Wednesday, Lively’s lawyers subpoenaed music executive Scott “Scooter” Braun, a longtime friend of Baldoni’s, best known for his longstanding feud with Taylor Swift, a longtime friend of Lively’s. Braun, 43, was subpoenaed in Lively’s ongoing suit against Baldoni because his company, HYBE America, owns a majority stake in the firm of Baldoni’s crisis PR manager, Melissa Nathan. In Dec. 2024, a bombshell New York Times story alleged that Nathan orchestrated a smear campaign against Lively, 37, on Baldoni’s behalf. Baldoni later sued both Lively and the Times over the claims. Both suits have been dismissed. Before the dismissal, Baldoni’s legal team had subpoenaed Swift herself, at one point alleging Lively tried to blackmail the singer, 35, into releasing a statement of support by threatening to leak their private texts. Though the claim led to rumors that Swift and Lively’s friendship had “halted,” Lively’s lawyers strongly denied she’d attempted blackmail, and Swift’s reps slammed the subpoena as “tabloid clickbait.” The blackmail claim was eventually dismissed as “improper” by the judge, and Baldoni’s team dropped the subpoena.
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