The legal battle between Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni has a new star and it is Taylor Swift.

The latest round of legal drama between actress Blake Lively and her “It Ends with Us” director Justin Baldoni offers incredible insight into the support network Lively relied on during and after the movie’s production — including one of her good friends, Taylor Swift.

According to unsealed documents filed in U.S. District Court in Manhattan on Tuesday and obtained by CNN, Lively spoke openly with friends about the trouble she allegedly experienced on the set of the 2024 movie, which she costarred in alongside Baldoni.

Lively has accused Baldoni of sexual harassment and coordinating a “plan” to “destroy” her reputation, according to a suit filed against him and his production company, Wayfarer Studios.

In one exchange with Swift, with whom she has had a longstanding friendship, Lively referred to Baldoni as her “doofus director,” according to the new filing. A year later, the two women texted about Baldoni again, according to the new filing, this time ahead of a New York Times story that burst open the drama on set for all the public to see.

“I think this bitch knows something is coming because he’s gotten out his tiny violin,” Swift texted Lively, along with a screenshot of an Instagram post from People Magazine, highlighting comments from Baldoni about being “sexually traumatized” in his past, according to the legal documents. Swift likened the Lively/Baldoni situation to “a horror film no one knows is taking place,” the documents show.

CNN has reached out to Swift’s representative for comment.

“The newly unsealed evidence shows the concerns of Ms. Lively and others were documented in real-time as early as Spring 2023, and Wayfarer understood them as ‘sexual harassment’ concerns,” Sigrid McCawley, a member of Lively’s legal team, said in a statement to CNN. “The evidence also documents how Wayfarer refused to investigate, but instead attempted to ‘bury’ Ms. Lively and others who spoke up through retaliation,” she said.

Asked to comment on McCawley’s statement, Bryan Feldman, a lawyer for Baldoni and Wayfarer, said “the evidence does not support the claims as a matter of law. A simple read of the newly released message exchanges make the truth abundantly clear. We remain confident in the legal process and clearing the names of all of the Justin Baldoni parties.”

After the New York Times published its article, “’We Can Bury Anyone’: Inside a Hollywood Smear Machine,” Baldoni filed suit against the newspaper, alleging that the story was “rife with inaccuracies, misrepresentations, and omissions” and relied on Lively’s “self-serving narrative.”

The story included contents from a Civil Rights Department complaint, typically kept confidential, that Lively had filed against Baldoni in December 2024 accusing him of sexual harassment and retaliation against her.

Lively then filed a suit against Baldoni. Baldoni followed with a $400 million suit against Lively and her superstar husband, Ryan Reynolds, alleging defamation and that they both “hijacked” his film and were attempting to “destroy” his career.

A judge dismissed Baldoni’s suits against Lively and Reynolds, as well as against the New York Times, in June 2025.

In December 2025, Lively’s suit against Baldoni was postponed from a trial date of March 9 to May 18, 2026.

Swift’s star power first entered the case in May 2025, when it was revealed that she had been subpoenaed after text exchanges were revealed to include the name “Taylor” as part of Baldoni’s suit.

Baldoni had sought to depose Swift, and requested more time to make that happen, but a judge ruled against it in September 2025.

Swift and Lively are known to have had a close friendship and reference is made in the newly unsealed legal documents to the song “My Tears Ricochet” from Swift’s “Folklore” album being used in the “It Ends with Us” trailer.

Lively directed the music video for Swift’s song “I Bet You Think About Me (Taylor’s Version) (From The Vault)” and the actress and her husband Reynolds frequently socialized with the singer and her now fiancé, NFL player Travis Kelce, including attending his games playing for the Kansas City Chiefs.

In November 2024, Reynolds confirmed that Swift is the godmother to his and Lively’s three young daughters — James, Inez and Betty. The couple also have a son, Olin, born in 2023.

Swift was not the only one to allegedly complain about Baldoni, the newly unsealed documents show.

The legal documents also included what are said to be messages from “It Ends with Us” actress Jenny Slate, who allegedly wrote in one that “this has been a really gross and disturbing shoot, and I’m one of many who feel this way,” about her time spent on set.

CNN has reached out to representatives for Slate for comment.

By Lisa Respers France, CNN

Released Tuesday by the North Carolina Medical Examiner’s Office, the report said Naroditsky tested positive for methamphetamine and kratom, an opioid-related ingredient that is increasingly added to energy drinks, gummies and supplements.

Naroditsky was last known to be alive on Oct. 18 when he accepted a food delivery. He was found dead the next day after missing a flight, according to the report.

Friends went to Naroditsky’s house two days before his death after he appeared to be acting strangely online, and they took away 40 pills of the stimulant Adderall. Investigators later also found bags of kratom in the home, according the report.

Naroditsky was a child prodigy who became a grandmaster, the highest title in chess aside from World Chess Champion, at age 18.

Fellow grandmasters credited him with introducing the sport to a wider audience by livestreaming many of his matches and sharing live commentary on others. Thousands of people regularly tuned in on YouTube and the interactive streaming platform Twitch to watch Naroditsky play.

High-speed competitive speed chess flourished during the COVID-19 pandemic, creating a chess community that was soon rife with cheating allegations as players gained access to sophisticated computer programs that could give them an unfair advantage.

Naroditsky was accused of cheating by former World Chess Champion Vladimir Kramnik. He denied the allegations, which were not proven.

In his last livestream before his death, Naroditsky said the allegations had taken a toll on him.

“Ever since the Kramnik stuff, I feel like if I start doing well, people assume the worst of intentions. The issue is just the lingering effect of it,” Naroditsky said.

The International Chess Federation filed a formal complaint against Kramnik in November, accusing him of harassment and insulting the dignity of fellow players.

Kramnik, who called the federation’s investigation “insulting and fair,” in turn filed a defamation lawsuit against the organization the following month.

In a post Tuesday on the social platform X, he said that Naroditsky’s death an “immense tragedy” and that in the immediate aftermath, “a cynical smear campaign was launched, unjustly linking me — without any factual basis — to Daniel’s untimely death.”

Kramnik said that was followed by “multiple direct murder threats directed at me, my wife and my children, which compelled me to pursue legal action.”

“After viewing portions of his last stream and despite our existing tensions, I publicly urged Daniel’s friends — on what tragically turned out to be the morning of his death — to look after and seek urgent help for him,” Kramnik added. “Regrettably, those efforts were in vain.”

The Associated Press

Nicki #Minaj surprises conservatives with praise for Trump, Vance at Arizona event


U.S. Vice President JD Vance said Sunday the conservative movement should be open to everyone as long as they “love America,” declining to condemn a streak of antisemitism that has divided the Republican Party and roiled the opening days of Turning Point USA’s annual convention.

After a long weekend of debates about whether the movement should exclude figures such as bigoted podcaster Nick Fuentes, Vance came down firmly against “purity tests.”

“I didn’t bring a list of conservatives to denounce or to de-platform,” Vance said during the convention’s closing speech.

Turning Point leader Erika Kirk, who took the helm after the assassination of her husband, Charlie Kirk, has endorsed Vance as a potential successor to President Donald Trump, a helpful nod from an influential group with an army of volunteers.

But the tension on display at the four-day gathering foreshadowed the treacherous political waters that Vance, or anyone else who seeks the next Republican presidential nomination, will need to navigate in the coming years. Top voices in the “Make America Great Again” movement are jockeying for influence as Republicans begin considering a future without Trump, and there is no clear path to holding his coalition together.
Defining a post-Trump GOP

The Republican Party’s identity has been intertwined with Trump for a decade, but he’s constitutionally ineligible to run for reelection despite his musings about serving a third term. Tucker Carlson said people are wondering, “who gets the machinery when the president exits the scene?”

So far, it looks like settling that question will come with a lot of fighting among conservatives. The Turning Point conference featured arguments about antisemitism, Israel and environmental regulations, not to mention rivalries between leading commentators.

Ben Shapiro, co-founder of the conservative media outlet Daily Wire, used his speech on the conference’s opening night to denounce “charlatans who claim to speak in the name of principle but actually traffic in conspiracism and dishonesty.”

“These people are frauds and they are grifters and they do not deserve your time,” Shapiro said. He specifically called out Carlson for hosting Fuentes for a friendly interview on his podcast.

Carlson brushed off the criticism when he took the stage barely an hour later, and he said the idea of a Republican “civil war” was “totally fake.”

“There are people who are mad at JD Vance, and they’re stirring up a lot of this in order to make sure he doesn’t get the nomination,” he said. Carlson described Vance as “the one person” who subscribes to the “core idea of the Trump coalition,” which Carlson said was “America first.”

Turning Point spokesperson Andrew Kolvet framed the discord as a healthy debate about the future of the movement, an uncomfortable but necessary process of finding consensus.

“We’re not hive-minded commies,” he wrote on social media. “Let it play out.”

If you love America, you’re welcome in the movement, Vance says

Vance acknowledged the controversies that dominated the Turning Point conference, but he did not define any boundaries for the conservative movement besides patriotism.

“We don’t care if you’re white or black, rich or poor, young or old, rural or urban, controversial or a little bit boring, or somewhere in between,” he said.

Vance didn’t name anyone, but his comments came in the midst of an increasingly contentious debate over whether the right should give a platform to commentators espousing antisemitic views, particularly Fuentes, whose followers see themselves as working to preserve America’s white, Christian identity. Fuentes has a growing audience, as does top-rated podcaster Candace Owens, who routinely shares antisemitic conspiracy theories.

“We have far more important work to do than canceling each other,” he said.

Vance ticked off what he said were the accomplishments of the administration as it approaches the one-year mark, noting its efforts at the border and on the economy. He emphasized efforts to end diversity, equity and inclusion policies, drawing applause by saying they had been relegated to the “dustbin of history.”

“In the United States of America, you don’t have to apologize for being white anymore,” he said.

Vance also said the U.S. “always will be a Christian nation,” adding that “Christianity is America’s creed, the shared moral language from the Revolution to the Civil War and beyond.”


Those comments resonated with Isaiah White-Diller, an 18 year-old from Yuma, Arizona, who said he would support Vance if he runs for president.

“I have my right to be Christian here, I have my right to say whatever I want,” White-Diller said.
Turning Point backs Vance

Vance hasn’t disclosed his future plans, but Erika Kirk said Thursday that Turning Point wanted Vance “elected for 48 in the most resounding way possible.” The next president will be the 48th in U.S. history.

Turning Point is a major force on the right, with a nationwide volunteer network that can be especially helpful in early primary states, when candidates rely on grassroots energy to build momentum. In a surprise appearance, rapper Nicki Minaj spoke effusively about Trump and Vance.

Vance was close with Charlie Kirk, and they supported each other over the years. After Kirk’s assassination on a college campus in Utah, the vice president flew out on Air Force Two to collect Kirk’s remains and bring them home to Arizona. The vice president helped uniformed service members carry the casket to the plane.

Emily Meck, 18, from Pine City, New York, said she appreciated Vance making space for a wide variety of views.

“We are free-thinkers, we’re going to have these disagreements, we’re going to have our own thoughts,” Meck said.

Actor James Ransone, known for his role in ‘The Wire,’ dead at 46.

LOS ANGELES — #JamesRansone, the actor who played Ziggy Sobotka in the HBO series “The Wire” and appeared in many other TV shows and movies, has died. He was 46.

The Los Angeles County Medical Examiner’s office said in online records that Ransone died by suicide on Friday.

Ransone’s film credits include “It: Chapter Two,” “The Black Phone” and “Black Phone 2,” and he appeared in TV shows including the cop drama “Bosch” and “Poker Face.”

Messages seeking comment were left for representatives of Ransone on Sunday, as well as with a spokesperson for the medical examiner’s office.

Elon #Musk becomes first person worth US$700 billion following pay package ruling.

Tesla (TSLA.O) CEO Elon Musk’s net worth surged to US$749 billion late Friday after the Delaware Supreme Court reinstated Tesla stock options worth $139 billion that were voided last year, according to Forbes’ billionaires index.

Musk’s 2018 pay package, once worth $56 billion, was restored by the Delaware Supreme Court on Friday, two years after a lower court struck down the compensation deal as “unfathomable.”

The Supreme Court said that a 2024 ruling that rescinded the pay package had been improper and inequitable to Musk.

Earlier this week, Musk became the first person ever to surpass $600 billion in net worth on the heels of reports that his aerospace startup SpaceX was likely to go public.

In November, Tesla shareholders separately approved a $1 trillion pay plan for Musk, the largest corporate pay package in history, as investors endorsed his vision of morphing the EV maker into an AI and robotics juggernaut.

Musk’s fortune now exceeds that of Google co-founder Larry Page, the world’s second-richest person, by nearly $500 billion, according to Forbes’ billionaires list.

Reporting by Rajveer Singh Pardesi in Bengaluru, Editing by Franklin Paul

How did #Taylor #Swift and #Travis #Kelce get together? Thank Mama Swift.

Travis Kelce might want to add a special dance moment with his future mother-in-law at his wedding reception with Taylor Swift.

Thanks to the newly dropped episodes of “The End of an Era” docuseries on Disney+ we now know that her mother Andrea Swift was the MVP when it came to the singer meeting, dating and eventually getting engaged to Kelce.

At the beginning of the fourth episode, Swift is chilling with her people in a dressing room so massive that her mom comments on the size.

Taylor Swift responds by making a comparison to football player’s locker rooms and the audience learns that before the couple ever met, Swift’s cousins took a picture in front of Kelce’s locker with the Kansas City’s Chiefs, where his number is 87.

Swift is famously into numerology, so sidebar: two plus 87 equals 89 and she was born December 13, 1989 so we really should’ve seen this engagement coming.

At any rate, in the series, we learn that Swift had no idea who Kelce was. Her mother then tells what she considers to be a “pretty cool story.” After Kelce went on the “New Heights” podcast that he cohosts with his brother Jason Kelce in July 2023 to share that he had tried to get a friendship bracelet with his phone number on it to Taylor Swift, her mother got wind of it.

“And so of course I call up my resident expert on Kansas City Chiefs, my cousin Robin, and I go ‘Tell me about this guy named Travis Kelce,’” Andrea Swift recalls in the series. “And she goes ‘Oh my God! He’s the nicest guy and you know what, he really loves his mom!’ I went ‘ding, ding, ding, ding.’”

According to the Swift family matriarch, the challenge then became how to get her famous daughter to meet the tight end.

“I’d been very non athlete,” Taylor Swift explains. “Because I’m not one and I’ve always been like, what would we talk about?”

But Mama Swift took the ball and ran with it, calling her daughter to let her know “hey, there’s a guy” and that Kelce was pretty cute.

“You said something to the effect of like ‘You gotta start doing something different,” the younger Swift shared, silently giggling at the thought.

“Listen it was so earnest,” her mother explains. “I thought it was the sweetest thing in the world that he came to your show. He brought you something from your world. To me that really said a lot.”

Taylor Swift says that on their first date Kelce explained football to her “as if it were like violent chess.”

From there, the pop star says, she became “obsessed” with Kelce and consequently obsessed with learning about the sport he plays, which she says is “the greatest surprise of my life.”

Now, she even clocks who is on the injured reserve list for the different teams, she says.

“I’m like, what does it mean? What’s the extent of the injury,” Swift says. “Like are we dealing with an Achilles thing or is it hamstring?”

Way to score in love and sports knowledge Tay.

By Lisa Respers France

Cardi B, brimming with praise for Saudi Arabia, goes viral in kingdom, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia -- U.S. rapper Cardi B has gone viral in Saudi Arabia, where the artist performed in the early hours of Sunday morning and unleashed a torrent of praise for the kingdom in a series of social media videos.

Saudi Arabia has been splashing out in recent years amid an ambitious economic reform drive that has included spending vast sums on celebrity appearances as it seeks to rebrand its image and attract non-oil investment.

“Everything is brand new, honey. This country looks like it was just opened up yesterday,” the artist said in a video posted on Instagram that has been widely shared online.

Cardi B was one of the headline performers at Riyadh’s MDLBEAST Soundstorm festival, where she welcomed the thousands in attendance with the traditional Muslim greeting “Salam alaikum” before later stating that “everything is mashallah” in the wealthy Gulf monarchy.

The Arabic word, meaning “God has willed it”, is a common term of praise in Muslim countries.

Known for her explicit language, the rapper adopted a more restrained tone during her set, avoiding her most graphic expressions.

She wore a flowing outfit that covered her from neck to toe, a departure from her usual, often revealing, stage attire.

In the run-up to the performance, the artist posted videos at Riyadh’s luxury malls and donned a hijab, while praising the shopping, ranting against paying American taxes and raving over the levels of opulence in the Saudi capital.

“The shopping is great, mashallah!” she added, while gushing over the fame she enjoyed in the kingdom.

“I’m somebody over here,” she said.

“I do recommend to come over here for vacation. There’s no alcohol, but some of y’all don’t need to be drinking and having S-E-X.”

Cardi B’s appearance in Saudi Arabia also comes just months after she was cleared of an assault charge in a US$24 million civil trial in which the star was accused of slashing a woman’s face with her fingernails.

The rapper -- whose real name is Belcalis Marlenis Almanzar -- was just the latest American to make waves in the Gulf region in recent days.

Last week, right-wing media personality Tucker Carlson announced he would be buying property in neighbouring Qatar as he rebuffed accusations he had taken money from the Gulf state.

Celebrities, athletes and social media influencers have increasingly been drawn to perform, compete and make appearances in the Gulf states in recent years, where they receive eye-watering sums but are also criticised for turning a blind eye to rights abuses.

Jennifer Lopez, Celine Dion and Eminem are among the most high-profile names to have performed in Saudi Arabia recently.

Earlier this year, the Riyadh Comedy Festival sparked a controversy in the US, as comics who staunchly defended free speech back home were accused of hypocrisy for performing in Saudi Arabia.

By Sofiane Alsaar, AFP

Jason Bateman makes a rare comment about his sister Justine Bateman

NAGOYA — Canadian ice dancers Piper Gilles and Paul Poirier finished fourth in figure skating’s Grand Prix final Saturday, missing the podium by just 0.06 points.

Gilles and Poirier were third after the rhythm dance Thursday but placed fourth in the free dance with 125.86 points to their “Vincent” program — bringing their total to a season’s best 208.75.

Reigning world champions Madison Chock and Evan Bates of the United States captured gold with 220.42 points for their third straight title at the midseason event featuring the top six in each discipline.

Laurence Fournier Beaudry, who’s from Montreal but now represents France, and Guillaume Cizeron claimed silver with 214.25 points.

Britain’s Lilah Fear and Lewis Gibson edged out Gilles and Poirier for bronze with a total of 208.81.

In the Junior Grand Prix Final, Canada’s Ava Kemp and Yohnatan Elizarov won ice dance bronze.

#Rapper #Tekashi 6ix9ine gets 3 months in prison for violating probation in gang case.

The 29-year-old artist from Brooklyn, whose real name is Daniel Hernandez, admitted to the violations during a hearing in federal court in Manhattan, where Judge Paul Engelmayer expressed frustration that Hernandez keeps getting into trouble. The rapper got a 45-day sentence late last year for breaking the supervised release terms.

“From time to time your actions suggest that you believe that ordinary rules don’t apply to you,” said the judge, who said another prison sentence was needed to send a message to Hernandez.

Hernandez, who shot to fame with the 2017 release of his song “Gummo,” gave a lengthy speech in court, describing several episodes where he and his relatives were harassed and threatened because of his cooperation with authorities in the gang case.

“Unknown individuals left a coffin in front of my house with an animal in it to send me a message,” he said. “Three masked gunmen held my mom at gunpoint.”

Hernandez pleaded guilty in 2018 to his involvement with a violent New York-based gang, the Nine Trey Gangsta Bloods. He was handed a lenient sentence of two years in prison in 2019 followed by five years of supervised release for his cooperation in the racketeering case against gang members.

He was even released from federal prison several months early during the height of COVID-19 pandemic in 2020.

Friday’s sentence was related to small amounts of cocaine and ecstasy being found at the rapper’s Miami home during a police raid in March, and his punching a man who taunted him at a Florida mall in August over his cooperation against gang members. His lawyer had requested six months of home confinement for the violations.