Blake Lively and Taylor Swift’s Texts Reveal Why Their Friendship Began Fracturing: ‘Miss My Funny, Dark, Normal-Speaking Friend’

Taylor Swift and Blake Lively’s once-close bond appears to have started drifting well before anyone outside their circle realized there was tension.

In newly unsealed legal documents released Tuesday, Jan. 20 — ahead of a summary judgment hearing in Lively’s ongoing lawsuit against Justin Baldoni scheduled for Jan. 22 — an apparent text exchange included in the filing offers a rare window into where things stood between the two women. While the messages themselves don’t name either celebrity, other documents in the same filings describe the exchange as a conversation between Lively and Swift.

In one message, Lively checks in directly, admitting she’s been worried she may have contributed to the distance between them. She also notes that her husband, Ryan Reynolds, encouraged her to ask Swift head-on rather than sit with uncertainty.

“I have no reason to ask, but I donno [sic], I’ve been feeling like I should… is everything ok? I felt like a bad friend lately because I was such a sad sack who only talked about my own s— for months. You were generous to not only be the key person there for me during all of it, but also to let me off the hook for being so in it,” Lively writes.

She continues by emphasizing that she wants the chance to fix anything she may have done unintentionally — and that she understands Swift was under immense pressure.

“I always want the opportunity to be a better friend if there’s something I unintentionally did. I know how busy and taxed you are – physically, emotionally, practically, so I don’t expect any more from you ever,” she adds. “Just want to make sure all is good.”

Swift replied more than an hour later, acknowledging that Lively wasn’t imagining the shift — but framing it as something that hadn’t reached crisis level.

She told Lively she was “not wrong, but it’s also not a big deal,” then explained she’d been depleted across the board as she neared the end of her Eras Tour.

“I think I’m just exhausted in every avenue of my life and in recent months had been feeling a little bit of a shift in the way you talk to me,” Swift wrote. She also referenced the weight of the Baldoni situation, recognizing how consuming it can become: “Yes there has been a lot of Justin stuff but I’ve been through things like this before and I know how all consuming it is.”

But Swift also said something else had been bothering her — not the intention behind Lively’s messages, but the tone.

“It’s more like… and I feel really bad saying anything about this because your texts have been so nice in their intent but your last few… it’s felt like I was reading a mass corporate email sent to 200 employees,” Swift continued.

She followed with what reads like a plea for the friend she misses — not a polished version, but the one she knows intimately.

“And it feels awful to be in any way critical of any way you process what you’ve been going through but I just kinda miss my funny, dark, normal-speaking friend who talks to me as herself… And I know you feel attacked from all sides for ridiculous reasons so you’re feeling like you have to overly explain things… but. It’s me! That’s just caused a little distance. And you don’t need to apologize. Just come back please.”

Hours later, Lively wrote back, saying Swift’s observation landed — and that she hadn’t fully realized how much she’d changed her voice in messages.

“So yeah, I’ve been texting like I’m writing. Not like me talking. I didn’t realize that until you pointed it out, but I see it,” she replied, describing herself as “digitally paranoid.”

Lively said the pressure of the conflict had made her doubt herself and even feel like she’d lost her sense of identity.

“On top of that, I’m over packaging simple things bc I’ve felt so deeply misunderstood that I don’t trust my judgement of myself anymore… This f—ing guy and what he did to me gave me an identity crisis. Legitimately.”

She then suggested the most destabilizing part wasn’t just the people she viewed as “bad guys,” but the friends she believed would stand by her — and didn’t.

“The thing that spooked me most in all this though, wasn’t the bad guys being bad guys. It was the good guys, my lifelong friends -allies to women- who quietly dipped. And so I’m probably being over the top with my friends who stayed because I’ve never felt more alone,” she wrote.

Lively ended by thanking Swift, apologizing broadly — “to you… to me and to our kids” — and unleashing her anger at Baldoni: “F— that guy and f— his whole gaggle of supervillains.”

The exchange reportedly happened just three days before Swift wrapped her tour, and Lively closed on a supportive note, saying she was “excited” for Swift “to be done with suitcases, constant sinus infections and torn up kneecaps.”

Elsewhere in the filings and surrounding legal back-and-forth, the documents revisit how Swift’s name became part of the larger public swirl around the dispute — including claims tied to Lively’s communications during the conflict.

In text messages attributed to Lively and exhibited in Baldoni’s January 2025 countersuit against Lively and Reynolds — a countersuit that was later dismissed by the judge — Lively allegedly referred to her husband and Swift as her “dragons,” a Game of Thrones-style reference to people she says defend her.

“I happen to have a few dragons. For better or worse, but usually for better,” the alleged message read. “Because my dragons also protect those I fight for. So really we all benefit from those gorgeous monsters of mine. [Smiley-face emoji] you will too, I can promise you.”

And after Baldoni’s lawyers attempted to subpoena Swift in May 2025, Swift’s representative issued a statement aimed at creating distance between the singer and the film It Ends With Us — beyond a licensing agreement for a single track.

“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, she did not even see It Ends With Us until weeks after its public release, and was traveling around the globe during 2023 and 2024 headlining the biggest tour in history,” the spokesperson said.

“The connection Taylor had to this film was permitting the use of one song, ‘My Tears Ricochet.’ Given that her involvement was licensing a song for the film, which 19 other artists also did, this document subpoena is designed to use Taylor Swift’s name to draw public interest by creating tabloid clickbait instead of focusing on the facts of the case.”