Blake Lively Wants Celebrity Text Messages to Remain Confidential with Protective Order Request

Blake Lively’s legal team is making another push for a stronger protective order in her legal battle against Justin Baldoni.

On Thursday, Lively’s lawyer Meryl Governski argued that “an Attorneys' Eyes Only ('AEO') category” is needed to avoid leaks in the press.

Governski told Judge Lewis Liman, “The parties in this case, on both sides, include people whose entire living is made off providing information to the press and content creators. There are 100 million reasons for these parties to leak information because the PR value is greater than complying with the court’s orders.”

Governski wants to keep Lively and her husband Ryan Reynolds’ texts with celebrities as part of the AEO, saying, “There is a significant chance of irreparable harm if marginal conversations with high profile individuals with no relevance to the case were to fall into wrong hands.”

She added, “There are 100 million reasons for these parties to leak information because the PR value is greater than complying with the court’s orders.”

In Baldoni’s defamation lawsuit against Lively, he included text messages between himself and Blake talking about her superstar friend Taylor Swift while they filmed “It Ends with Us.”

In one alleged text, Blake referred to Taylor and Ryan as her “dragons,” writing to Justin, “If you ever get around to watching ‘Game of Thrones,’ you’ll appreciate that I’m Khaleesi, and like her, I happen to have a few dragons. For better or worse, but usually for better. Because my dragons also protect those I fight for. So really we all benefit from those gorgeous monsters of mine. You will too, I can promise you.”

In response to the special protective order request, Liman said, “A lot of what you are talking about is inherent in the nature of the case. If you sue a high-profile person in this industry, it’s going to get picked up by the press. The stuff that’s highly relevant is going to end up being disclosed.”

Lively and Baldoni’s teams have not been seeing eye-to-eye on the protective order.

Baldoni’s lawyer Bryan Freedman believes that only a standard protective order is needed, calling it “offensive that anyone would suggest that we would disregard a protective order.”

Freedman pointed out that it wasn’t just to treat “people who are powerful in the industry” differently than others.

He emphasized, “My clients have the right to defend themselves, they have a right to transparency.”

While Lively’s team feels that the case involves “trade secrets,” Freedman argued, “This is not the formula for Coke and Pepsi.”