Justin Baldoni defenders have accused Taylor Swift of deleting photos featuring her former friend Blake Lively from her Instagram account in recent days.
Fans have highlighted posts that highlighted the bond between the 35-year-old pop superstar and the 37-year-old actress, who recently subpoenaed Taylor’s longtime nemesis Scooter Braun in her ongoing sexual harassment lawsuit against Baldoni, 41.
Many of those photos of the former friends — which have long been preserved online — are nowhere to be found on Taylor’s account, leading Blake’s biggest critics to claim that Taylor wiped them from the site after falling out with the Gossip Girl star.
The latest claims were made just days after Baldoni’s $400 million defamation suit against Lively, her husband Ryan Reynolds, her publicist and the New York Times was thrown out by a judge.
But the real reason those posts are no longer on Taylor’s Instagram is more complicated. As fans familiar with the singer–songwriter’s complicated history have pointed out online, the post’s absence doesn’t have anything to do with Taylor and Blake’s fractured relationship.
In August of 2017, the singer–songwriter shocked her followers by deleting her social media headers on multiple platforms and wiping her posts, including on Instagram.
Justin Baldoni defenders have accused Taylor Swift of deleting photos featuring her former friend Blake Lively from her Instagram account in recent days; pictured together in 2023 in NYC
Fans of the actor posted screenshots of since-deleted pictures of Taylor and Blake to Instagram and Reddit after his defamation suit was thrown out, suggesting that their fractured friendship led to the deletion; Baldoni pictured in August 2024 in NYC
The move was a promotional stunt to prepare for the release of her sixth studio album Reputation, which was released in November of that year.
Among the posts that Baldoni’s most parasocial defenders cited as evidence that Swift allegedly wiped Lively from her feed was a photo of Swift holding an adorable koala while Lively petted its face and neck and stared into its eyes.
The post featured a gushing comment that now read as ironic after the behind-the-scenes collapse of Taylor and Blake’s friendship
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‘HAPPY BIRTHDAY BLAKE! You’re a wonderful friend, to humans and koalas alike,’ the Shake It Off singer wrote. ‘I absolutely love you 😘😘😘.’
The post was referenced in conspiratorial videos shared by Lively’s critics on Instagram and in posts highlighting Taylor’s alleged social media cleanse on Reddit.
But commenters clarified that the birthday post, along with others featuring Blake or referencing her were lost when Taylor culled her posts in 2017, long before Blake and Justin’s dueling lawsuits that led to her falling out with Taylor.
Another widely shared posts featured a pumpkin pie that Blake had either bake or procured for Taylor that featured a banner reading ‘Happy Thanksgiving Birthday’ and featuring cute figurines modeled after two of Taylor’s Scottish Fold cats.
But that photo also appears to have predated the 2017 disappearance of Taylor’s social media history.
But Swifties noted in the comments that Taylor had wiped her Instagram and other social media accounts in August 2017 — after the photos were posted — as a PR stunt to announce the release of her Reputation album (pictured)
One photo that was deleted in the 2017 sweep featured Taylor and Blake cuddling with a Koala and had a birthday caption dedicated to the actress
Another photo deleted before their falling out showed a pumpkin pie Blake made or procured for Taylor with figurines of her Scottish fold cats on it
The former pals were snapped in midair during a trip to in a long-gone post
The screenshot features an old profile photo of Taylor and long-outdated Instagram design elements further indicating that the screenshots were taken years ago.
A third post included a photo of Blake and Taylor snapped in midair as they jumped up in front of a theater marquee at a theme park in .
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‘Yesterday was such an amazing day off– roller coasters, kangaroos and LOLs with @blakelively,’ she wrote, before noting that she would next be performing in Adelaide.
Although Taylor currently has few photos with Blake on her Instagram, the actress isn’t completely absent.
She’s featured in some group shots, including in photos from a 2019 Christmas party featuring many of the hitmaker’s pals and members of her squad.
In one photo, Blake beamed as her husband Ryan Reynolds planted a kiss on her cheek while Taylor was joined by her go-to producer and co-songwriter Jack Antonoff and Larry David’s daughter Cazzie David, among other friends.
After Swift’s fans spoke out in the comments of a popular Reddit post by an account with a pro-Baldoni username that falsely claimed the singer had deleted her posts featuring Lively, the original poster responded defensively in edited text.
‘No one claimed [the posts] were deleted recently. Not once,’ they reponded. ‘There is literally no way to find out when a post was deleted.’
The conspiratorial posts from Baldoni defenders come after a judged threw out his defamation suit against Blake, her husband Ryan Reynolds, her publicist and the New York Times. He has until June 23 to refile four of his seven claims; pictured in August 2024
Blake’s sexual harassment lawsuit against Justin is still proceeding, and she has subpoenaed Taylor’s longtime nemesis Scooter Braun as part of it
In response to fans noting that Taylor’s posts were deleted in 2017, they shot back: ‘What a narrow world view to impose on other people. There are 8 billion people on the planet, everyone would not know she even exists. Sorry to break that bubble, but not everyone is a swiftie and that’s okay.’
Since Taylor and Blake’s reported falling out, the It Ends With Us star has since praised the singer and actress Cynthia Erivo on social media in what some fans interpreted as a dig at her ex-pal.
Although Lively was able to breathe a sigh of relief after Baldoni’s lawsuit against her was thrown out by a judge, his attorney has since warned that she is on a ‘false victory tour.’
The judge’s decision still gives the actor and director’s legal team the option to refile four of its seven claims by June 23, so Lively isn’t completely out of the woods yet,
However, Baldoni’s defamation and extortion claims were dismissed with prejudice, meaning they cannot be refiled.