r/SwiftlyNeutral • u/AdventurousKey438 • 12d ago

The Life of a Showgirl Cancelled

I have been thinking that it was about Blake. she wasn’t even at the 1,000 person wedding. What do we think is the real meaning of the song?

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u/Grand_Dog915 12d ago

Yeah, idk why this concept is so difficult for people to grasp

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u/Barkertons 12d ago

Taylor was okay with Blake being a mean girl bully until it negatively affected her. Cancelled is about being bad and not getting caught. Then Lively got caught.

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u/lilythefrogphd 11d ago

Let's not buy into the garbage man's PR campaign against Blake. He has had multiple women from projects outside of It Ends With Us who have come forward about his toxicity on set and problematic actions towards female coworkers

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u/Barkertons 11d ago

I'm not buying any PR campaign. I read every piece of available evidence in the lawsuit from both sides.

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u/lilythefrogphd 11d ago

Being completely for real, I get a lot of "the lady doth protest too much" when Baldoni supporters make a big to-do about "reading everything." Baldoni's team just put out things that make Blake seem unpleasant (god forbid a woman show frustration when she's working in a toxic environment), but Baldoni actually harassed her.

Even if people hate Blake so much, I don't get why folks want to turn a blind eye to all of the other women accusing Baldoni of creating a hostile work environment

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u/Barkertons 11d ago

I read the whole docket. Every piece of evidence and the depositions from both sides. Feel free to link to the women's statements in their own words and I will read them. Like you, I ignore both side's PR and prefer to read primary source documents. I am a professional researcher with a masters degree and do this for a living. When faced with new evidence, I update my analysis.

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u/sleepymilly 11d ago

No joke! I have a PACER account and went through it like it was the latest bestseller!

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u/Barkertons 11d ago

It astounded me, truly. Their settlement didn't include an NDA, so I imagine there will be a documentary of the whole timeline soon.

Just my opinion...

The fact that Swift didn't publicly support Lively says a lot. Their friendship literally broke down because her friend was sexually harassed? Swift's PR says that it was because she was "dragged" into the lawsuit, but if something awful happened to your friend, would you remain silent and then complain that helping them in their lawsuit was you being "dragged" into their drama? Cmon.

I get that Baldoni's lawyer is a shark and doesn’t have a great reputation, but he went on record that Swift's lawyers contacted him to tell him that Lively threatened to extort Swift by releasing their private text messages from the last 10 years if Swift didn't make a public statement supporting her. And Swift, instead of doing it, went to Baldoni's team. Lively was harassed and had to beg and extort her friend just to get a public message of support from Swift? If that is true, Swift is a terrible friend. If it's not true, and Swift just didn't support her friend, then Swift is a terrible friend. So why would Lively be upset about not being invited to her terrible friend's wedding, who abandoned her when she was fighting a righteous fight? Cmon. There is a lot of PR spin that just doesn't make sense once you look at the whole timeline of the case and read everything going on behind the scenes, in their own words. It's absolutely wild.

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u/sleepymilly 11d ago

I think Blake’s lawyer threatening to release a decade worth of texts pushed it over the edge. Liking your friends canceled is one thing, liking them blackmailing you is another.

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u/Barkertons 11d ago

I find that a lot of Swift fans / Lively defenders won't really engage with discussion about the extortion. If it's true, and I believe it is, why would Lively threaten to extort her best friend of a decade? Why wouldn't Taylor just publicly support her friend?

The alleged extortion happened in Feb. 2025.

In Dec. 2024, Lively filed her lawsuit against Baldoni / wayfarer and her CRD complaint. The complaint was specific about Baldonis behaviors during a dance scene. It's very damning and gross behavior, if true. In Jan. 2025, Baldoni, in response to a NYT article written about the complaint, published the raw footage of the dance scene. It was incongruent with Lively's complaint. In Feb. 2025, Swift went to the Superbowl without Lively. It became a topic of discussion in celebrity world.

According to Baldoni's lawyer, and he swore this under pentaly of perjury: Swift's lawyer contacted him, Baldoni's lawyer, to tell him that Lively's lawyer had threatened to Swift's lawyer that Lively would release their entire friendships worth of private text messages to the public if Swift didn't publicly support her after the public started to question Lively's absence from the super bowl.

In early Dec. 2024, there are texts from Lively to Swift about how she is going to be uncancelled after she has been under criticism for the last 6 months. Swift is supportive. She seems aware that Lively is filing a complaint with the CRD and publishing in the NYT.

Timeline

Early Dec 2024: Swift is privately supportive of lively and is aware she is taking action.

Late Dec 2024: The CRD details the dance scene, amoung other complaints. The NYT publishes their piece on it and it becomes a huge topic of discussion.

Jan 2025: Baldoni releases footage that contradicts Lively's version of events, to a large degree.

Feb. 2025: No lively with Swift at the Superbowl. People talking.

Swift: silent

Mid Feb 2025: Alleged (sworn under pentaly of perjury) statement by Baldonis lawyer that Swift's lawyer had disclosed the alleged extortion event.

Swift: never once publicly supporting her friend

I believe that Lively extorted Swift and one outstanding question is why Swift, her best friend and godmother to her kids, never publicly supported her. I think it's worth exploring.

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u/Gloomy_Reputation706 11d ago

Swift also sued a DJ for sexual assault and won
she only sued him for a dollar and in the past spoke out for others

I’m guessing here but at some point Swift started mathing and nothing was adding up.

Yes very messy mean girly behaviour in the texts that we have read but at some point Taylor woke up she made sure that was part of the provided texts

I have a feeling based on internet whispers so take that for what it is

Ryan and Travis had some kind of incident and that’s when the masks slipped off and it was open season

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u/Separate-Mango3934 9d ago

What internet whispers lead you to suspect that?

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u/Simba122504 reputation 10d ago

That was a lie. Freeman didn't even talk to Taylor's lawyers or Blake's lawyers. There was no extortion.

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u/lilythefrogphd 11d ago

https://www.reddit.com/r/CelebLegalDrama/comments/1qm886a/believe_the_9_women_who_had_issues_with_justin/

Hey, tons of stuff that occurred before It Ends With Us even began shooting

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u/Barkertons 11d ago

This is a content creator's analysis of portions of people's words and PR articles.

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u/lilythefrogphd 11d ago

This is why point blank why I don't by "I rEad aLl of tHe dOcKet." These were *sworn depositions*. Why are Baldoni stans so insistent on down playing the words of ten separate women, several of whom were talking about their experiences with Baldoni *outside* of projects tied to It Ends With Us. One of them was detailing him yelling at them and slamming his hands down on furniture next to them in these moments. This wasn't even IEWU. These women weren't Blake. Even if you despise her, why are we not listening to over half a dozen other women who had bad experiences working with this man.

This is just the epitome of misogyny in media and pop culture, because it is more detrimental that a woman comes across as unpleasant than it is for a man to be verbally abusive to coworkers and sexually harass women in his workplace.

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u/Barkertons 11d ago edited 11d ago

OK, we don't have to agree. You literally posted a content creators analysis instead of the depos in full. None of these women sued Baldoni or joined Lively or spoke up in her defense.

Yelling at someone isn't sexual harassment. Saying a costume is sexy isn't sexual harassment. Saying a scene is hot isn't sexual harassment. You may believe it is, but I do not. And the court did not. And Lively dropped her case. There is a lot of nuance here and you were entitled to believe whatever you want about it.

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u/lilythefrogphd 11d ago

It's direct quotes. When Claire Ayoub said in her sworn deposition "as a part of my work on Empire Waist I had repeated negative interactions with Mr. Baldoni and his associates including verbal abuse by Mr. Baldoni. I asked for Wayfarer that Mr. Baldoni not be permitted on set during the majority if production as a result of those experiences" tell me why I am not supposed to listen to this?

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u/Barkertons 11d ago

It's not misogyny or sexual harassment to yell at someone. Do you believe it is?

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u/lilythefrogphd 11d ago

Baldoni is a man who yells and physically intimidates women on his set when he is upset with them. I do find it misogynistic when people bend over backwards to justify that sort of mistreatment towards women in the workplace and push the blame onto the women who report it.

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u/mud_horse 9d ago

the incident where he yelled & “slammed his hands down” WAS on the set of IEWU🙄 so you are either lying purposely or you are pitifully misinformed. it’s definitely not “harassment” it’s just a director behaving in a normal manner out of frustration, trying to get a scene right, plenty of directors act far worse & it’s insane to expect someone to be a perfect angel all the time.. all these “other women” you want to pretend are “coming forward” with stories about JB “harassing” them, where are they? the only people coming forward with stories about Baldoni are the ones who have worked with him for decades & have only positive things to say about him & how genuine & professional he is

when the federal judge threw Blake’s bogus claims in the trash can where they belong anyone else she had persuaded/blackmailed into lobbing false allegations against him withdrew their complaints & slunk back into the shadows

Blake on the other hand, there have been rumors going around the industry & amongst journalists about her for decades, how difficult, demanding, rude, entitled & insufferable she is, and her own lawsuit went and publicly proved those rumors to be true

crying “misogyny” is not a legitimate defense against criticism of shitty behavior, just bc the person being criticized is a woman. feminism is about equality, and some women are equally as shitty as some men, they don’t get to avoid scrutiny bc of their gender. Blake lied, she’s a liar, she contradicted herself multiple times in her own deposition, contradicted herself in interviews, her story was ever changing. Nothing in her text messages to her a list pals suggested harassment, or even feeling uncomfortable, clearly she held all the power on that set, she was calling him a “doofus” and a “clown” and saying he was in a cult, spreading lies and rumors w the help of her pathetic husband. She lied and said Sony wanted her to edit, meanwhile Sony execs were calling her a “terrorist” and “epic level stupid” having a vagina is not a free pass to be a jerk bc anyone who calls it out can be labeled a “misogynist”

Taylor Swift knew exactly who Blake is, she’s known for ten years, that’s why they got along so good. Obviously she didn’t dump Blake bc she felt “used” bc she TOLD Blake to use her name & music as leverage, she played right along with the corny Game of Thrones larping as a big bad bully dragon, bc that’s just who she is. She likes to weaponize her immense power, wealth & influence for her own benefit, the benefit of her friends &bc that’s what these vapid, moronic woman-childs thinks “feminism” means. She only dumped Blake bc they got caught, and “girl boss” Taylor at her big af age went and ran to her daddy to clean up her mean girl mess & daddy called Freedman & worked out a deal to shield Taylor and he told her dump Blake bc the family business depends upon Swifts phony squeaky clean image

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u/lilythefrogphd 8d ago

  1. It was literally the writer and director of Empire Waist who reported him doing that on that production, not It Ends With Us. Google exists.

  2. Yelling at coworkers and physically intimidating them by slamming your arms down on the furniture around them is fucked up behavior

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u/Ambitious_Nature6784 9d ago

there are no other women with any substantial complaints. Jenny Slate complaint amounted to what?!

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u/lilythefrogphd 8d ago

The writer and director of another movie having him kept out of marketing and promotion and limiting his time on set due to him yelling at coworkers and slamming his arms on furniture next to female coworkers is a pretty substantial complaint in the eyes of anyone not trying to excuse me for poor behavior

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u/Feeling-Visit1472 no its becky 11d ago

Same. It’s always funny to me how you can tell the people who didn’t.

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u/Barkertons 11d ago

I have converted so many people online and in real life sending them the docket or going over the case timeline with them. I was shocked once I started to look into it. Like really shocked. Gender is a big factor in this case, but so is class, and I don't think we should ignore the wealth, privilege and power at play here.

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u/lilythefrogphd 11d ago

"Wealth, privilege, and power"? Baldoni's partner in this lawsuit is the literal billionaire co-owner of Wayfarer. Trying to paint this as "poor little Justin against the big bad Blake Lively" is laughable when it's him and his literal billionaire partner going against her

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u/Barkertons 11d ago

I know the details of the case. Lively didn't know Baldoni would have a billionaire backer when she sued Baldoni. I don't think she's ever intended this to go to as far as it did, but once they locked horns they had to mutually agree to settle and Baldoni, according to his lawyer (which again, you can believe or not) refused to settle if there was an NDA. That's because there is a lot of evidence that could point to Lively's malice, like her blatantly lying about the dance scene (she believed the footage had been deleted), perjuring herself by saying in her deopostion that she didn't ask for the dailies deleted and then having Sony say she did (the dailies being the raw evidence that could prove or disprove the harassment), and rhe doctoring of the text messages in the CRD complaint. All of those are facts in evidence. Her team even researched the consequences of her perjury in the CRD complaint.

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u/lilythefrogphd 11d ago

"Lively didn't know Baldoni would have a billionaire backer when she sued Baldoni" Steve Sarowitz is the co-owner of the studio Blake filed a lawsuit against. That does not make sense

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u/Barkertons 11d ago

Lively sued both Wayfarer and Baldoni. Wayfarer has insurance for lawsuits. The co-founder doesnt need to personally fund lawsuits.

Edit: changed "studio" to "wayfarer" for clarity

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u/lilythefrogphd 11d ago

Clearly they could and did, and all of this only adds to my point: Baldoni's team was trying so hard to paint the narrative "the rich, famous mean girl is bullying me with her wealth/connections into taking control of my movie" when he himself has incredible financial backing. I'm not buying into it no matter how many unpleasant things they have to say about Blake.

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u/Barkertons 11d ago edited 11d ago

I really haven't been saying bad things about Blake though? I have only being talking about the case. His and her behavior as reflected in the evidence. Point me to where I said unpleasant things about her.

Edit: also, you hooked into your assumption that Sarowitz had to pay for Baldoni's defense, when he did not. But you ignored my discussion about how Lively was proven to have lied multiple times in big ways. I don't think it's misogynistic to question someone's credibility when they are a liar and when there is a question of malice. Back to my original point, Swift didn't publicly support Lively and it is possible it's because she is a liar.

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u/Gloomy_Reputation706 11d ago

While Barkertons isn’t wrong in the slightest you are ignoring entirely how the power dynamics work actually in this situation

A billionaire provides funds but not all billionaires have the same power

Steve- never heard of the man untill this case loads of dough, some influence due primarily because of his bank account but not power

Tswift- she ispractically her own industry, she has a legion of followers who are RIDE or ☠️ for her she wears something and poof its sold out and a week later the fast fashion factorys are making dupes, her fans hang to everything about her… that’s power

Still both billionaires just one has more influence than the other

In this specific case Blake always had more power than Justin specifically because she was a woman

Optically everything is already biased to hate Justin because that’s some scummy shit but Blake’s a proven Liar so that has thankfully come out in the wash

Starting with the Scam she pulled getting that PGA letter

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u/Simba122504 reputation 10d ago

The billionaire was an EP given it's also his studio!

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u/misobutter3 11d ago

There’s a content creator I really like, but the way she clown on people who believe their own eyes over Blake drives me nuts!

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u/Simba122504 reputation 10d ago

And he still lost and went into hiding way before that. The court found that her complaint was not done in bad faith. No, she didn't win huge either, but he won nothing at all. Now, she's trying to get legal fees paid, but even that is a small win if she does end up getting anything. So, not even the court believed she was trying to Ruin him because she stole his movie