THE BIG STORY: Taylor Swift’s textual content messages with Blake Full of life have formally been deemed truthful recreation within the messy authorized battle over the film It Ends With Us. On June 18, a federal decide in New York ordered Lively handy over the messages to her onetime director and co-star Justin Baldoni, whom Full of life alleges sexually harassed her on set after which orchestrated a retaliatory smear marketing campaign after she complained.
Choose Lewis J. Liman mentioned Baldoni has the correct to see what Full of life and her longtime buddy Swift mentioned to one another about It Ends With Us. The explanation? Full of life’s personal discovery disclosures recognized Swift as somebody who knew that she complained in regards to the working setting Baldoni created on set, that means the duo’s textual content messages could be proof that both backs up or disproves Full of life’s harassment and retaliation claims.
It’s been a winding path to this ruling. Baldoni first sought to acquire the textual content messages by way of witness subpoenas to Swift, within the course of drawing fierce criticism from the pop celebrity’s reps for supposedly “creating tabloid clickbait as an alternative of specializing in the info of the case.” Baldoni later dropped the Swift subpoenas and efficiently petitioned to get the texts immediately from Full of life by the conventional discovery course of.
From a sensible perspective, this implies Baldoni will now have entry to some probably juicy Swift-Full of life textual content chains, however authorized confidentiality guidelines forestall him and his attorneys from sharing these messages with anybody else in the intervening time. If the case goes to trial as scheduled in 2026 — that’s, if Choose Liman doesn’t resolve the claims as a matter of regulation, and Full of life and Baldoni don’t resolve their points with a settlement — these textual content messages could possibly be proven to the jury as proof and, consequently, made public for the remainder of us too.
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Different high tales this week…
COPYRIGHT CLAIMS – GloRilla was sued by social media persona Natalie Henderson, a.okay.a. @slimdabodylast on Instagram, who claimed the rapper stole her viral catchphrase about Brazilian butt elevate beauty surgical procedure for a tune off the chart-topping debut album Superb. Henderson mentioned her ditty “All pure, no BBL/ Mad hoes go to hell” was the idea for GloRilla to rap “Pure, no BBL/ however I’m nonetheless gon’ give him hell” on the 2024 bonus monitor “By no means Discover.”
RIHANNA RUM RUSE – Beverage startup The3rdBevco and its founder, Peter Scalise III, agreed to pay a $1.1 million effective to the Securities and Change Fee (SEC) for allegedly touting a nonexistent partnership with Rihanna to develop a brand new alcohol model known as “RiRi Rum.” The3rdBevco, which reached a settlement with the SEC however neither admitted nor denied the federal funding regulator’s claims, supposedly tried at one level to rent Rihanna’s brother to facilitate a cope with the music icon, however a consulting contract was by no means finalized.
T.I. AS IN TRADEMARK INFRINGEMENT? T.I. was hit with a lawsuit claiming his upcoming film, Situationships, stole the title from an internet sequence of the identical title. Atlanta-based producer Cylla Senii allegedly spent years engaged on each TV and film variations of her Situationships sequence earlier than studying final fall that T.I. and his firm, Grand Hustle Movies, had been about to begin taking pictures an infringing film — “ironic” habits, mentioned Senii, for a rapper who not too long ago gained a giant IP case of his own.
RACKETEERING LAWSUIT – Fat Joe was accused in an explosive new lawsuit filed by his former hypeman, Terrance “T.A.” Dixon, of operating a wide-ranging prison enterprise that included pressured labor and the trafficking of underage women. Attorneys for Fats Joe fervently denied the claims as solely fabricated, and the rapper already has a pending counter-lawsuit of his personal accusing Dixon and his legal professional of extortion. The lawsuit additionally focused Fats Joe’s administration firm, Roc Nation, which rapidly requested to be dismissed from the case and mentioned it “has nothing to do with any of this.”
MURDER PLOT UPDATE – R. Kelly misplaced his request to get out of jail over issues that jailhouse officers orchestrated a homicide plot to cease the disgraced R&B star from revealing supposed prosecutorial misconduct in his intercourse crime trials. A decide in Chicago mentioned she doesn’t have jurisdiction over the matter and that any bid for launch should be introduced as a civil rights lawsuit or habeas corpus petition in North Carolina, the place Kelly is serving his 30-plus-year jail time period for 2 totally different federal convictions.
CUSTODY BATTLE – DDG requested for court permission to go to the son he shares with Halle Bailey in Rome, the place the 25-year-old singer and actress is filming a film and has sole custody of the kid amid home violence claims in opposition to the rapper. A decide in Los Angeles mentioned it’s “affordable” for DDG to see his son, however that the visits should be supervised by an unbiased monitor slightly than the 27-year-old Twitch rapper’s mom, as he had proposed.
Okay-POP FIGHT – A Korean appellate courtroom upheld a previous legal injunction requiring Okay-pop group NewJeans to stick with its label, ADOR. The five-member group sought to strike out by itself below the moniker NJZ, citing alleged mismanagement by ADOR and its mother or father firm HYBE. However the ruling by Seoul’s Excessive Courtroom, which may have main implications for artist-label contracts within the Okay-pop trade, mentioned ADOR and HYBE acted in good religion by offering main help for NewJeans’ debut and rise to stardom.
ASSAULT CASE – Chris Brown pled not guilty to a prison assault cost in London for supposedly attacking a music producer with a bottle at a Mayfair nightclub in 2023. The troubled R&B singer was arrested and spent every week in jail when he arrived in Europe for his Breezy Bowl XX tour in Might, however he’s now out on an almost $7 million bail bundle and performing exhibits within the U.Okay. all through June and July.
TOURING TIFF – A settlement was reached to finish dueling authorized claims between Chicago rapper Polo G and Dutch live performance reserving company J. Noah B.V. over a canceled European tour from 2023. Polo G had accused the company of violating mental property regulation by persevering with to advertise exhibits utilizing his title and picture after their deal was terminated, whereas J. Noah mentioned the rapper improperly canceled the tour after a whole bunch of 1000’s of {dollars} had already been deposited for efficiency venues and manufacturing employees.
SMOKEY’S DEFAMATION CLAIMS – 4 former housekeepers suing Smokey Robinson for rape asked a judge to toss the Motown legend’s defamation counterclaims in opposition to them. The ladies mentioned {that a} press convention they gave asserting the bombshell lawsuit is shielded from defamation claims by the so-called litigation privilege below the First Modification, and so they accused Robinson of utilizing the countersuit to retaliate in opposition to them for talking out about an alleged years-long sample of sexual assault that the singer denies.