Questions surrounding alleged online smear campaigns against Blake Lively are taking on new weight as her legal dispute with Justin Baldoni and his Wayfarer Studios team moves toward trial.

Newly surfaced court filings and a digital analysis cited by Deadline suggest that efforts to target Lively online may have overlapped with attempts to push negative narratives about Taylor Swift — and possibly involved the same network of accounts.

Lively's accusations, which sit at the center of her California Civil Rights complaint filed last year, claim she was the target of a preemptive online attack that damaged her reputation and cost her work. But the scope of that campaign, she argues, extended far beyond gossip.

The actor is seeking roughly $500 million in total damages, according to ABC News.

Study Points to Shared 'Amplification Network'

A metadata study produced by behavioral intelligence startup GUDEA has now emerged as a key point of discussion. While the study does not identify individuals responsible for the campaigns, it highlights significant overlap in users who amplified both the Swift-focused "Nazi" narrative and a separate astroturfing effort aimed at Lively.

According to the analysis seen by Deadline, "GUDEA found a significant user overlap between accounts pushing the Swift 'Nazi' narrative and those active in a separate astroturf campaign attacking Blake Lively."

The findings pointed to a surge of "inauthentic narratives" surrounding Swift's political beliefs ahead of her album release The Life of a Showgirl.

GUDEA said the intersection revealed "a cross-event amplification network... capable of escalating or ideologically reframing celebrity narratives."

A source familiar with Swift's camp, responding indirectly through Deadline, suggested observers simply "connect the dots," noting ongoing attempts to "pull Taylor into this lawsuit over and over" in filings and legal arguments.

Swift's name has repeatedly surfaced throughout the Lively–Baldoni dispute. She contributed a song to "It Ends With Us," and she is listed as a potential witness in the trial currently scheduled for May 2026 — along with Ryan Reynolds and Hugh Jackman.

Legal Filings Point to Broader Pattern Beyond Lively

The GUDEA study isn't the only evidence referenced in litigation.

In a separate federal case involving PR firm JonesWorks, founder Stephanie Jones alleges that the same tactics Lively describes were deployed against others, including "The Deb" producer Amanda Ghost during her conflict with Rebel Wilson.

Jones' legal team cites messages between Agency Group chief Melissa Nathan – accused by Lively of acting as a "hired gun" – and publicist Katie Case.

In one exchange, Case wrote, "Rebel wants one of those sites," a statement Jones' attorneys use to argue that multiple smear websites were created through the same pipeline.

A memorandum supporting Jones' proposed amended complaint reveals additional claims, "The September 2025 deposition of a former employee of Nathan revealed that she, at Nathan's instruction and in coordination with Jed Wallace, helped create the defamatory websites... just as she had done at least two other times."

Nathan has denied involvement in any such activity.

However, Jones' filing points to shared "digital fingerprints," including identical backlinking patterns across various sites targeting Jones, Ghost, and others — suggesting, her attorneys argue, the work of "the same individual or coordinated set of individuals."

Tags
Taylor Swift, Blake Lively