Blake Lively is grateful for her enduring friendships as she continues to navigate her very public, ongoing legal battle.
“This family has been family to me for nearly 20 years now,” Lively, 37, wrote via her Instagram Stories earlier on Saturday, May 17, reposting an upload from photographer Guy Aroch. “@guyaroch and [his wife] @annapalma see the world through a sense that is vibrant and alive, aspirational and grounded, perfect and messy, cinematically moving and still like a perfect vintage oil painting. They see maximum beauty and goodness.”
In Aroch’s original post, Lively posed with the artist and his relatives at an ongoing exhibit at The International Center of Photography in New York City.
Lively further gushed about their enduring bond in a follow-up social media tribute.
“This man is SUCH a good friend to me and everyone in his life,” she wrote. “You meet him, and he brings you into his trust and warmth like an old friend. I love him and his family so much. And, my HEAVENS, is he a one-of-a-kind artist?”
Lively has recently been involved in a lawsuit with It Ends With Us costar and director Justin Baldoni, accusing him of sexual harassment and trying to destroy her reputation late last year. Baldoni, 41, denied the accusations before filing a $400 million defamation suit against Lively and her husband, Ryan Reynolds. The married couple has rebuffed his claims and filed to dismiss his petition.
Baldoni’s attorneys, meanwhile, dragged Lively’s friend Taylor Swift into the courtroom battle earlier in May. His legal team sent Swift, 35, a subpoena for any texts exchanged with Lively. (A judge later ruled that Baldoni’s legal letter claiming Lively told Swift to delete their texts — and threatened to leak them if Swift did not comply — is inadmissible. Lively’s camp also called the accusations false.)
“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,” a rep for Swift told Us in a May 9 statement. “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 added, “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.”
Us also confirmed this month that Swift’s friendship with Lively — whom she’s known since 2015 — is “not what it used to be” as a result of the legal drama.
“Taylor is very uncomfortable about being pulled into the lawsuit,” a source exclusively told Us in the latest cover story. “It’s a huge thing now.”
Swift and Lively’s alleged falling-out also bled into the Another Simple Favor star’s connection to mutual friend Gigi Hadid.
“Gigi has always had a closer friendship with Taylor and stands by her,” a second source told Us. “She has been a very loyal friend to Taylor, and they have been best friends for a decade now.”
Per the second insider, Hadid, 30, “hasn’t necessarily chosen sides” between Lively and Swift but wants to be excluded from the legal drama.
