Last week, Time Magazine revealed their Time 100 list of “most influential people,” with several influential people getting their own covers. Blake Lively was on the list and she received her own cover. It was somewhat controversial, like Time was “choosing sides” in what will probably be a years-long legal battle between Blake and Justin Baldoni. What was even more strange is that the Time essay about Blake highlighted her donation to the NAACP Legal Defense Fund (as in, that was “the reason” why Blake made the list). Well, last night was the Time 100 gala, and Blake was there with her husband and her mother. Blake wore a Zuhair Murad gown with emerald jewelry – she looked fine. Ryan looked… odd. I’m getting a vibe, and that’s all I’ll say. You can read Blake’s speech at the gala here.
Blake and Ryan’s appearance actually came on the heels of some interesting reporting in People Magazine which I wanted to discuss. Several months ago, there was some interesting gossip that Blake and Taylor Swift’s friendship was on the rocks because Taylor didn’t appreciate Blake leveraging Taylor and Taylor’s name at work. As in, Blake used Taylor’s name as one of her “dragons” to threaten Justin Baldoni professionally, and Blake also had Taylor come to her home to personally pressure Baldoni to use “the Blake rewrites.” Taylor and Blake have still not been photographed together since this legal situation began. Well, Thursday afternoon, People Mag reported this:
Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds’ famous friends, Taylor Swift and Hugh Jackman, could be served with subpoenas as part of the It Ends with Us legal battle with Justin Baldoni, a source tells PEOPLE.
“Anyone that had any knowledge of this situation will be subpoenaed, no matter of their celebrity status,” the source says.
However, another insider says Swift and Jackman are “not privy to anything going on,” adding that claims they will be subpoenaed are “smoke and mirrors and trying to distract from the allegations against Baldoni.”
PEOPLE is out to attorneys for both Lively, 37, and Baldoni, 41, for comment, as well as representatives for Swift and Jackman.
It’s not “smoke and mirrors” – Taylor was clearly present during a pretty significant and much-debated meeting between Blake and Justin, a meeting which caused a flurry of texts, threats and legal actions in its wake. I have no idea if Hugh Jackman was witness or party to anything like that, but Taylor absolutely was. Well, just after People published that story, they followed up with this (after obviously hearing more from Blake’s team):
Taylor Swift and Blake Lively’s friendship is weathering the storm. Swift “was really hurt,” a source tells PEOPLE, after being implicated in Lively’s ongoing legal battle with Justin Baldoni over behind-the-scenes conflict on their movie It Ends with Us.
Lively, 37, referred to the pop star, 35, as one of her “dragons” in an alleged text exchange, according to a complaint Baldoni filed in January, which claimed that Swift had pressured him to accept rewrites on the movie. The latest development in Lively v. Wayfarer Studios et al. is the reported possibility that Swift could be among those served with subpoenas.
“Blake knew she and Taylor would come back from this at some point and that their friendship wasn’t done for good,” the insider says of the legal difficulties. “Taylor was really hurt by this situation, so she’s relieved they were able to recover from this and put it all behind them because it wasn’t something she took lightly,” they add.
Taylor wasn’t “implicated” though – what Baldoni described was Blake leveraging her famous friends to apply pressure on him to accept her rewrites. He’s not suing Taylor, but Taylor is absolutely going to have to sit for a deposition and she might have to testify in court, regardless of whatever Blake is telling Taylor now. This second piece reads like Blake’s team furiously doing damage-control on the Taylor fallout, because Taylor still hasn’t agreed to do a “we’re still BFFs” photo-op with Blake.
Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Cover Images.
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- Blake Lively, Ryan Reynolds during the TIME 100 Most Influential People in the World Gala, held at the Frederick P. Rose Hall, Home of Jazz at Lincoln Center in New York City, Thursday April 24, 2025. Jennifer Graylock-Graylock.com,Image: 991972082, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: Jennifer Graylock-Graylock.com, Model Release: no, Credit line: Jennifer Graylock-Graylock.com/Avalon
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- Blake Lively during the TIME 100 Most Influential People in the World Gala, held at the Frederick P. Rose Hall, Home of Jazz at Lincoln Center in New York City, Thursday April 24, 2025. Jennifer Graylock-Graylock.com,Image: 991972254, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: Jennifer Graylock-Graylock.com, Model Release: no, Credit line: Jennifer Graylock-Graylock.com/Avalon
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- Blake Lively, Ryan Reynolds during the TIME 100 Most Influential People in the World Gala, held at the Frederick P. Rose Hall, Home of Jazz at Lincoln Center in New York City, Thursday April 24, 2025. Jennifer Graylock-Graylock.com,Image: 991972363, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: Jennifer Graylock-Graylock.com, Model Release: no, Credit line: Jennifer Graylock-Graylock.com/Avalon
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- Blake Lively during the TIME 100 Most Influential People in the World Gala, held at the Frederick P. Rose Hall, Home of Jazz at Lincoln Center in New York City, Thursday April 24, 2025. Jennifer Graylock-Graylock.com,Image: 991986648, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: Jennifer Graylock-Graylock.com, Model Release: no, Credit line: Jennifer Graylock-Graylock.com/Avalon
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- Blake Lively during the TIME 100 Most Influential People in the World Gala, held at the Frederick P. Rose Hall, Home of Jazz at Lincoln Center in New York City, Thursday April 24, 2025. Jennifer Graylock-Graylock.com,Image: 991986741, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: Jennifer Graylock-Graylock.com, Model Release: no, Credit line: Jennifer Graylock-Graylock.com/Avalon
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- Blake Lively, Ryan Reynolds during the TIME 100 Most Influential People in the World Gala, held at the Frederick P. Rose Hall, Home of Jazz at Lincoln Center in New York City, Thursday April 24, 2025. Jennifer Graylock-Graylock.com,Image: 991987438, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: Jennifer Graylock-Graylock.com, Model Release: no, Credit line: Jennifer Graylock-Graylock.com/Avalon
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- Blake Lively, Ryan Reynolds during the TIME 100 Most Influential People in the World Gala, held at the Frederick P. Rose Hall, Home of Jazz at Lincoln Center in New York City, Thursday April 24, 2025. Jennifer Graylock-Graylock.com,Image: 991987448, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: Jennifer Graylock-Graylock.com, Model Release: no, Credit line: Jennifer Graylock-Graylock.com/Avalon
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- TIME100 Most Influential people in the World Gala, held at the Frederick P. Rose Hall, Home of Jazz at Lincoln Centre Featuring: Blake Lively, Ryan Reynolds Where: New York, New York, United States When: 24 Apr 2025 Credit: Jennifer Graylock/INSTARimages
Why does BL pose with her nose up in the air?
Why do you think? For real facts of the situation, I highly recommend the regular YouTube videos of Ask 2 Lawyers and Without A Crystal Ball.
I’m glued to this case! Also bringing receipts on YouTube:
Elsrich
Melanie King off script
Just U
I follow this case on both Without A Crystal Ball and Ask2Lawyers.
It really captures her character, doesn’t it?
Ryan Reynolds looks unwell.
RR is not looking well. That’s all I got.
Yes Ryan looks weird. The mess continues.
Yep. Ryan looks rough — like she’s still buying into her own hype, completely detached from reality, while he seems to be grasping the gravity of the situation and unraveling.
Meanwhile, why on earth are they building a “new, sprawling multi-million dollar hideout” in New York when they’re being sued for everything they own?
To be fair they both look like they abused the fake tan.
I was looking for words, and you found them. They are Trump orange. Yikes!
@lau
They don’t look tanned, they look spray-painted. Reynolds in particular is giving Trump a run for his money here. And his face is so distant, like he doesn’t even know where he is.
…both look as if they have lost a lot of weight; that’s all I got
She’s got a great figure and if you’ve got it flaunt it I say..can’t really tell if she’s lost weight or not. I find that her dresses are always too tight across the thigh area in any case.
@HUCKLE
It’s hard to tell what kind of figure she has, because she always wears stiff, constricting corsets.
She looks like she’s one of those people who gain weight in the torso, but have slim limbs and a face. But they both lost weight anyway.
Ryan almost looks disoriented, like, why am I here again? In one picture she’s hanging on to him as if saying, “No, honey, it’s okay. Just stand right here by me.”
Here she comes looking as smug as ever. Both insufferable.
Looking like a Barbie doll scraped from the bottom of a toy box.
Ryan is looking like life is catching up with his face.
💅🏾
1000% agree.
He looks like a really aged man. Went overboard with the fake tan too. First look at the photos, and he reminded me of Robert Redford, from about 30 years ago.
What’s wrong with Ryan Reynolds?
I read your comment in the voice of a comedienne who does a superb voice impression of Blake’s breathy, mumbly pronunciation of his name.
Ryan looks like someone who no longer has the strength to pretend that things aren’t as bad as everyone says they are.
Agreed. He usually looks like he is having fun. His face seems to say, “I am working. Look engaged. Gotta support the wife.”
Also… is Ryan wearing a toupee now? Because something about that hairline is looking very suspicious.
Excellent choice of photos, especially to illustrate why you’re “getting a vibe” from RR, Kaiser.
The dress is pretty.
I think it’s disgusting that they referenced her donation to the NAACP to justify her making this list. She made the donation years ago because she and Ryan got married on a slave plantation. So disappointed in Sherrilyn Ifill, former NAACP president, for acting like Lively is some sort of civil rights icon. Ifill wrote the opening to Lively’s blurb on the list.
I also don’t think Lively is influential. I have watched just one movie she’s been in, Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, and never watched Gossip Girl. I’ve mainly known her as Reynolds’ wife and Swift’s BFF. That’s about it. Until her allegations against Baldoni, I paid her absolutely no attention. She couldn’t even be bothered to advocate for domestic violence victims while promoting a film about DV, and now we’re supposed to believe that she’s a champion of justice? GTFOH.
Came here to say the same. It’s clear her team pulled all the stops to have her included in this year’s list. The donation to NAACP was years ago, and only because she and Ryan were getting bad publicity for marrying on a plantation.
I wanted to give her the benefit of the doubt but she’s a shameless opportunist. I realized it after she decided to use the death of Michele Trachtenberg for her own agenda, referencing her wearing lipgloss just so she could use the word “yummy” so that now when you google her name and that word, that “tribute” message pops up instead of the inappropriate text she sent to Justin.
And now, during this Time’s 100 speech, it supposedly has to do with that old NAACP donation, but she used the speech to prop herself up as a woman who’s a champion for victims of abuse and DV, but when she had the opportunities during the campaign for IEWU to do so, she refused to. Back then she even said the movie was not about DV, and promoted it as a rom-com. She used the movie’s campaign to deviate from those topics and keep it light-hearted so that she could promote her haircare line, her alcohol brand (she doesn’t drink, and to promote it for a DV movie is problematic), and her husband’s movie. But now all of the sudden she’s leading the movement for women who’ve suffered abuse. Please.
Baldini alleges Ryan mocked him in Deadpool and Wolverine via the character of Nicepool. That’s where Jackman being deposed would come in.
She looks fab. Ryan looks terrible. Is he under the influence of something to get through this event, because he seems barely to be hanging on.
He really doesn’t look well.
That first pic, a story of their relationship: She pointing the way and him dazed and confused following her.
He looks as others have said. Wonder WTH is going on.
I find them both insufferable and no longer a fan of his. She is a Regina George in every sense of the character.
Dude, what happened to Ryan Reynolds? He aged 20 years overnight. I used to find him handsome, but he’s lost a lot of weight and went way too heavy on the fake tanner.
What happened to the sexual harassment that started this? Baldoni has done a great job of burying his terrible behavior by getting everyone to turn on Blake. And it wasn’t even that hard. Because she’s a woman.
Finally. Someone finally gets it. Women reporting on men get punished.
What’s happened is she has yet to show receipts regarding her claims of abuse. Justin has provided screenshots receipts timelines and has proven Blake thought he wouldn’t fight her claims. Seriously are you just choosing not to google or bother reading into everything that’s occurred since December? Please do some research and do not worry about Blake-she doesn’t need saving nor your concerns.
@JAB
Co-sign.
There’s got to come a point where people open their eyes to what is happening. Blake is a menace.
Also, co-sign.
Has Ryan been going to Tom Cruise’s surgeon? He looks like he’s had something done to his face or hair to appear as if he hasn’t aged. It’s obvious but not obvious. Also to me, he appears stressed. Blake always appears to be oblivious.
I get the impression that Taylor isn’t playing along with whatever their game plan was. Taylor has been interrupting her downtime to support everyone but Blake.
I don’t find Blake or Ryan influential. I found it interesting that Blake claims that her mother was a victim of DV after claiming in interviews that she didn’t have anyone in her circle to use as a example and them promotes a movie about DV by encouraging women to wear florals and selling haircare products and alcohol. My parents would never go along with such a lie especially if it becomes such a public lawsuit.
We know his BFF Jackman is tight with the Kushners, maybe the orange face is his way of signalling his fealty to the current regime.
But yeah, he looks like someone who has been going through something truly dreadful for some weeks now and is barely keeping it together. Yikes.
Maybe one of his parents is ill.
I think one of his parents already passed away from Parkinsons.
The earrings are gorgeous? That’s all I got.
“Lively, 37, referred to the pop star, 35, as one of her “dragons” in an alleged text exchange, according to a complaint Baldoni filed in January, which claimed that Swift had pressured him to accept rewrites on the movie.”
–not only that but she also used Taylor’s name to get the original composer for IEWU, Brian Tyler, fired and replaced with a composer of Blake’s choosing, Duncan Blinkenstaff, who worked on movies for both Blake and Ryan.
Allegedly, the way she got Sony to do this was by saying Taylor had beef with Brian Tyler, and that she would only allow the use of her song for the movie if they replaced him. Since Sony wanted Taylor’s song, they agreed. However, we have no idea if it’s true Taylor actually stipulated that or that she has any problem with Tyler.
That being said I actually don’t think there’s any rift between them. I think Taylor is just smart about her image and is laying low. But she’s the godmother to one of Blake’s kids. I doubt that Blake, using her same to throw weight around would undue that friendship.
@mtec sorry if one of my close friends referred to me as her pet I would have second thoughts. Taylor has worked hard after the fall out with well everyone to stop getting dragged into drama. BL made a huge mistake by using her to bully Baldoni. Baldoni is doing a great job at isolating BL with her own actions. I don’t see a huge crowd of Hollywood lining up to speak up for her and if BL keep it u she will get dropped. Yes I do think she wants to keep Taylor but not as a friend as a PR megaphone to anyone that attacks her online. BL is a user.
Being the Godmother to someone’s kid is not an unbreakable bond, IMO. I don’t think it would stop Taylor from dropping B if she was disappointed in B or felt betrayed.
Exactly. She used to be a devoted godmother to Jaime King’s kids and now she’s not even friends or associated with Jaime.
Taylor looks out for Taylor first. It’s pretty obvious Blake has been weaponizing her friendship with Taylor and this is the first time it’s come to light on a massively public scale. Taylor is smart – she isn’t one to be okay with people exploiting her name. If she was on Blake’s side she would’ve done one of her pap walks which say everything while saying nothing explicitly. She did it with Sophie Turner when her divorce announcement and Jonas tried to slander her in anonymous gossip hit pieces. The fact Taylor hasn’t done that speaks volumes.
Ryan’s giving Ozempic Face.
Ryan Reynolds is looking like a hesitant husband. In his mind I don’t think his wife is supposed to bring challenges, he doesn’t seem like a “for better or for worse” kind of guy.
You could ask Scarlett Johanson about that.
Looks like her public persona is holding him hostage here.
BL poses like that to elongate the shape of her face, which tends to look disproportionately broad when she looks straight ahead or with a downward tilt.
RR looks like a demented manorectic.