Blake Lively‘s lawyer Mike Gottlieb is giving his first major interview, and in it, he’s revealing if she will testify in the It Ends with Us legal case, if Ryan Reynolds will, if her famous friends could be subpoenaed, and more.
So, will Blake testify? The answer is yes. He shared with People, “The ultimate moment for a plaintiff’s story to be told is at trial. We expect that to be the case here [with Lively]. So we would, of course, expect her to be a witness at her trial. Of course she’s going to testify.”
Gottlieb continued, “There are individuals that were witnesses to or experienced misconduct that is relevant to Ms. Lively‘s claims. We expect their testimony, particularly about what took place on set, will come out through live witness testimony.”
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He added, “We think there have been a lot of distractions put up to deflect attention from the retaliation campaign that was launched against her. And we expect and hope that in discovery we’ll have an opportunity to really focus on what we believe to be the core part of the case, which is that this retaliation campaign was launched against Ms. Lively for her having raised concerns about sexual harassment.”
Will Ryan Reynolds, Blake‘s husband, end up testifying? That’s unclear.
But he “may or may not be a fact witness.”
And about the claims that Justin Baldoni‘s team could subpoena major celebs like Taylor Swift and Hugh Jackman, Gottlieb responded, “It’s completely unclear what claims or defenses in the case any of these celebrities… have any relevance to at all. This is a case about what happened to Blake Lively when she raised claims of sexual harassment on the set. It’s not a case about how songs were chosen for the movie. It’s not a case about fictional Marvel characters in Deadpool movies.”
“You have to ask the question, then, why are these people being subpoenaed?” he added. “Do they have any actual relevance to the case at hand? You can’t just go around subpoenaing people because they’re famous and you think it will generate a bunch of headlines. And the federal courts don’t tolerate that kind of behavior.”
Justin Baldoni‘s lawyer, Bryan Freedman, responded to all of this.
Freedman said, “Although obviously uncomfortable for the Lively parties, the truth is not a distraction. The truth has been clearly shown through unedited receipts, documents and real life footage. More to come. Blake was the one who brought her high-profile friends into this situation without concern for their own personal or public backlash. As the truth shows, she used her Dragons to manipulate Justin at every turn.”
He added, “Ryan’s involvement is very well documented and we continue to discover more intentional misconduct. Was Disney actually complicit in Ryan using shareholder revenues to further a personal grudge? I would be surprised to learn that this type of corporate waste would not lead to much more exposure for those that have been complicit in affecting shareholder revenue.”
Taylor‘s name seems to be mentioned in an alleged text released by Justin Baldoni in one of his lawsuits, though it has never been confirmed that she’s definitely the subject of that particular message.