Transcription
All right, guys, happy Wednesday!
Stop everything because Taylor Swift—yes, we are taking full credit for this—stay-at-home moms, people that have been sending me tips, we are taking full credit for this journalism. Clearly, either she or someone on her team saw our episode yesterday because we have just been on the scent like a hound. A picture was starting to form that Taylor Swift may have been involved somewhat in the background in what happened to Justin Baldoni. I mean, she was named in the lawsuit for a reason.
Like I said on yesterday's show, it was her particular style—these Easter eggs. She was hanging out with them at that time. The New York Times article, a lot of what happened just seemed to have a flavor of Tay.
Well, today her team, and respect to them for the speed at which her marketing team moves, dropped an entire article in the press announcing that she and Blake are taking a break. They’re no longer friends because, shocking, Taylor Swift feels used. She always feels used, and she wants nothing to do with the Justin Baldoni situation.
Is she feeling used, or are people starting to jump into lifeboats because Ryan and Blake's Titanic—you know, the ship that not even God could sink—is sinking? It's going down because God is God.
Okay, also, it's the anniversary of Jussie Smollett's hate crime, so it is a dark day—the hate crime that he staged against himself six years ago. I decided to invite on the Nigerian brothers, the Osundairo brothers, the people who helped him in the plot against himself. I asked them the burning questions that everyone wants to know, like, "This is MAGA country." Who exactly came up with that line? You guys are going to crack up; these men are hilarious.
So let's get started and welcome back to [Applause] [Music] Candace.
All right, guys, so we all know the backstory here. Blake Lively essentially threatened, you could say, Justin Baldoni, calling Taylor Swift and Ryan Reynolds her beautiful little dragon monsters that she sometimes has to use to get what she wants done.
Well, I am pleased to report that we have got live footage of one of her dragons. Check this out. [Music]
I am so sorry, Queen Kisi; it does not seem to be going well for you right now.
Well, we'll tell you guys, yesterday we did this episode. Obviously, you saw it. I just was starting to put together this timeline like the psycho that I am and recognized that Taylor Swift was just in the mix a lot. You know, she's listed as a special thanks to Taylor Swift in the credits of "It Ends With Us." We had a lot of question marks about why that was.
Again, just her particular flavor and style of, "I'm the victim," and like these horrible men did something to me. I personally did not feel that Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds had the star power to get the New York Times to risk their professional reputation to help take down Justin Baldoni. That's like global star power. That's something Kris Jenner can get done, Taylor Swift can get done, Beyoncé can get done—not Ryan Reynolds, not Blake Lively for sure.
Anyway, so today I woke up to a huge article in the Daily Mail. I want to tell you something first and foremost: do not let people mistake you into thinking this is just a gossip column.
Okay, I've hung around some of these A-listers. I used to be friends with Kanye West. I know how this works. Let me tell you something that is well known in Hollywood: Taylor Swift has plugs, especially at the Daily Mail. When she wants to get a narrative out, the person that works for her is this woman named Tree.
Tree is allegedly vicious. She will protect Taylor Swift's reputation by any means necessary, and they fold. The editors, the writers, journalists—when she says put something in the Mail, it gets done. And I'm not saying that part allegedly; that is a ficky fact. Okay, take that to the bank. Start a 401k.
Tree knows how, when she feels Taylor Swift is being threatened, she's going to protect her reputation. So this Daily Mail article appears very timely. It says, "Taylor Swift taking a step back from Blake Lively as dramatic legal battle with Justin Baldoni threatens their decade-long friendship."
It's got Jame Fuska as the writer. He is in the entertainment space; he's like the top writer for their entertainment column, and he's not going to just write this unless he was told this. This is how it works in the background, you guys. You have these PR people who come behind, and they tell you, "This is what we want planted."
The more power you have, it will be word for word exactly what you want the public to read. So I'll tell you what they want the public to read: it says Taylor Swift is taking a step back from her friendship with Blake Lively after feeling like she was used as an intimidation tactic by the actress in a lawsuit that she never wanted to be embroiled in.
For the time being, she is taking a step back from Blake because she doesn't want to get tangled in this more than she already has, which is far more than she ever needed to be, an insider told the Daily Mail. Her friends also think that Blake's "I'm Kisi" and like her "I happen to have dragons" text to Justin was uncool and unnecessary because she was essentially used as an intimidation tactic.
She was referred to as some kind of pet or possession. Taylor shouldn't even be involved in this at all. She was only going over to visit Blake and Ryan with the understanding that the meeting would be over, a second source said. Taylor has politely backed away from it all. She is conscious of her own image and hates that she was even mentioned.
Okay, so the last part is true. She is politely backing away because she's conscious of her own image. She's extremely conscious. But I just—it can't always be that Taylor Swift is being used. She can't always be being used. I'm sorry; it's been like 20 years of her being used, and I don't feel that that is the true story.
Okay, they acknowledge in this piece that the last time Blake Lively and Swift were pictured together was in October on a double date with Travis Kelce. Since basically Blake Lively has filed this sexual harassment complaint with the California Civil Rights Department, they have not been pictured together.
So again, I'm going to tell you why I don't believe this article. First and foremost, because it is just Taylor's modus operandi to constantly say that she's being used and she doesn't know how she got here, blah, blah, blah. But there's also something that doesn't make sense.
Okay, what do you mean you showed up and the meeting was still going on? What does that mean? What does that mean, "I showed up and the meeting was still going on"? So what are you being victimized by? If I show up at my friend's house and there's a meeting going on and I didn't know it was still going to go on, I don't need to insert myself in that meeting.
Justin Baldoni, in his lawsuit, stipulates that Taylor Swift peer pressured him, and she is not denying that in this article. She's not saying, "I didn't speak to him; I said nothing," which I would be like, "Oh, you just used me as an intimidation tactic, and your phone had nothing to do with it."
She is saying that she then went and heaped praise on Blake Lively's version of the opening scene. That's what his lawsuit states. This is when they were talking about that rooftop scene. Okay, so she inserted herself in that.
Unless Blake Lively nudged and said, "Can you go in there?" in which case Taylor Swift is still responsible for having peer pressured him, then there's no deniability here. She can't say, "I had nothing; I don't know how I got involved in this."
You got involved in it because you peer pressured him to make a change that he didn't want to make to his movie. So her follow-up text, which reads like a psycho, obviously, "I'm Kisi; these are my dragons," she said it because you did something.
Okay, he clearly texted and said, "You didn't have to do that. You didn't have to have Taylor Swift there to make me look at your edits." Blake Lively doesn't say, "Oh, what are you talking about? Taylor Swift said nothing to you." Instead, she doubles and triples down by saying, "She's my beautiful little monster; sometimes I have to release these little monsters on the world."
So it happened. Okay, it actually happened. Baldoni said that she specifically spoke up about how much she loved the script, which implies to me that unless Taylor Swift is a liar, she read the script.
So she involved herself in the script of the movie unless she lied. Again, just backing up a friend. Yeah, what she said, "Love the move," she must have read Blake Lively's edit. So why is she backing out here?
Very carefully worded back out because she's smart. Okay, Taylor Swift is very smart. She is media savvy. Tree is media savvy. She's looking at this case.
Okay, if you're her point person, Tree, and you're reading through the documents, you're going, "Blake Lively is going to lose this." Okay, so we're going to take a lifeboat now and say that we don't want to deal with this.
She could still, by the way, be friends with Blake Lively in the background. If Tree is as savvy as I think she is, she's probably going to say to Taylor, "Pretend to be shocked that this article came out, but we're getting you out of this publicly. We're going to throw this article in the Daily Mail, then you tell, 'I don't know what happened; I feel used by Tree. I don't know how this article happened.'"
The public thinks you have nothing to do with it, and you are not going to be pictured with her until this thing is over. This is being slated for 2026.
Okay, so I don't even think they're not friends anymore. She's the godmother to her children. But I think that Taylor Swift is publicly backing away from this friendship because she's intelligent.
Like I said, I have a scent on this like a hound, and I wanted to show you something. I'm going to show you why I even further do not believe a word that Taylor Swift is saying, and I still have question marks about her involvement because something else that got sent to me is completely crazy.
Okay, seriously, you guys, this is—get seated here. This is super interesting. So I'm showing you something that I actually had saved as a piece of the puzzle, but I didn't know where it quite fit in the puzzle, so I just held it to the side. I was like, "Okay, this is random. It's a random thing that I know happened, but I don't know why this happened, and I'm not sure why it's important."
So apparently, toward the end of filming for "It Ends With Us" and also simultaneously the end of the filming for "Deadpool"—because remember, these films were filming at the exact same time—suddenly the "It Ends With Us" crew decided that they needed a new composer.
It's very strange. The movie has a composer, and you would not be hiring that person or trying to change that person or fire that person late in the day. You don't just suddenly switch out the composer a year after you begin filming. That sounds very stressful.
What was even more interesting is that not only did they remove the "It Ends With Us" composer, but they decided to use "Deadpool's" composer. Okay, so here's the clip that I didn't show you before because I wasn't sure about this piece. Here is "Deadpool's" composer, Rob Simonson, discussing that sudden change in the phone call that he got.
Take a listen. Again, this is "Deadpool's" composer, Rob Simonson, appearing on the Score podcast.
"So there was like a week of recording left on 'Deadpool,' and I suddenly get a text from Blake, and she sent a little video saying, 'You know, I'm doing this thing; need a score. Can you deliver it in a week?' And I said, 'I don't think a week, but maybe three if we have three.' So that materialized, and yeah, so it was sequential. I was able to kind of finish up 'Deadpool' but I was going from the dub of 'Deadpool' and going back to the studio at night working on Blake's film.
So in a week, a little nutty. Well, it ended up being about a month. I have to wonder—I mean, no interest in dishing—but was there a composer before that? Did they just one day wake up and say, 'Oh, you know what? We need a score. Call that guy who's doing my husband's movie; maybe he has time.' I mean, how do you end up getting a call when you're in that kind of a pinch unless I kind of guessed correctly?"
Yeah, I think probably it was a scenario of a last-second replacement—a last-second replacement of a composer in which someone got kicked out of "It Ends With Us," and they pulled over this guy from "Deadpool" last minute.
What could have happened? I didn't know this information. I was like, "Okay, just store it, Candace; something will pop up, and a piece of this will make sense."
So get ready. Okay, yesterday somebody sends me an email. It's always like—I'm telling you, the culture, man—we are on these people. We are just like it's a whole FBI unit of stay-at-home moms, you know, dads that are really good at texting, sending me information.
So this woman puts on my radar that there's a Reddit post—an anonymous Reddit post, I kid you not—that went up six months ago, during the week of the "It Ends With Us" premiere.
Now, typically, you write a post anonymously; who cares, right? You're like, "Okay, well, this seems like a stretch." No, it's not a stretch. This is amazing. This person correctly stated everything that was going to happen.
Well, since what has happened since and what was happening in the background, essentially they present themselves as, "I know the person, a person that is going through this. Here is what is going on, and you're not going to believe what is going on and why it's happening."
Of course, when this person posted on Reddit, no one believed her because who would believe an anonymous post? A person saying that there's all this drama happening in the background.
The date on this post is August 12th. Okay, so just to give you the timeline: "It Ends With Us" world premiere was August 6th. That's when they had the red carpet premiere. Justin Baldoni gets put into the basement August 9th is when you, me, if we wanted to, could go see it in theaters.
This person on August 12th decides to write a whole long post because they're overcome with emotion and they don't know where to drop it. And that's what Reddit is for, right? You can't say to people that you know, so you just drop it on the platform.
Look what this person says; this is amazing. Okay, I'm going to read you the post entirely. This is in the Reddit feed for Colleen Hoover. This user writes, "Okay, I know a lot of the inside drama for 'It Ends With Us,' and I just don't know who to share it with, so here we are. I'm obviously using a throwaway, but I know someone who worked on the movie for most of its run who would have gotten these details piping hot and not some grapevine situation. They told me firsthand what they know.
I'll give you the bullet points. Supposedly, Blake felt that Justin made her uncomfortable on set. One instance in particular, they said, was that Justin told Blake that she looked sexy in what she was wearing on set. I don't know the context around it."
Pause there—fact check true. It was in Blake Lively's lawsuit. She said that he used the word sexy. This is a huge part of a lawsuit that we then found out in December. This person's dropping this tea in August, and Justin Baldoni's offense was this was a word that she introduced into our milieu, so to speak, in terms of our friendship.
She used to say sexy, so when I said sexy, I thought that was an okay term. So this person knows that it's in both of their lawsuits. Next, they say apparently Justin wasn't happy with the original editors being cut out of the movie, so he hired his own team to do his version of the movie.
Blake wanted to do her own version of the movie as a result, but Sony said no. Again, that fact check's true. We know that there were two versions that ended up being created.
So Blake goes to Sony and threatens to go to the New York Times with a story that says that Justin was sexually harassing her on set if they don't let her have her own version. This is crazy, okay? Crazy because in Justin Baldoni's suit, he alleges that for months Blake Lively was colluding with the New York Times for months.
I'm going, "Where is he getting for months?" We've now traced this back to December 18th. Well, this must be the version that she basically said, "Give me what I want, or I will go to the New York Times and blast you for sexual harassment."
Let's keep reading what this person dropped. Sony freaks out and says, "Okay, whatever you want." Again, when you read through Justin's complaint and what was happening behind the scenes with Sony, I would say fact check true based on the evidence and documents that I've seen.
Then it says Justin is banned from the Sony lot. I don't think forever, just for the run of the movie, but I could be wrong. That would make sense if they're worried about a Me Too situation. They're going to be like, "Okay, we don't want this to happen, and so we're going to separate from you creatively, not let you get involved or do anything."
This is the reason how he ends up in the basement. Then it says Blake hires T Swift's music video editors to do her version while she's filming in Italy for something else. Guess what? That back checks true as well.
Blake Lively went to Italy to film "A Simple Favor," another movie, and we had never had this tip that she hired Taylor Swift's music video editor.
Okay, next, Blake has a friends and family screening to get thoughts with lots of A-listers—Ben Affleck, Bradley Cooper, I think, etc. Now, why is that stunning to me? Because another piece I couldn't figure out is why in the credits, when they make fun of "It Ends With Us," they put in Gordon Reynolds.
If you could pull that credit up right now, Skylar, if we could pull in the credits from "It Ends With Us," if we have it. They also included Bradley Cooper, and I didn't know why. I was like, "Why is she giving a special thanks to Bradley Cooper in 'It Ends With Us'?"
Why did Blake Lively move to do that? That made no sense to me. This then locks that in. Bradley Cooper then sees the edit that was done with Taylor Swift's editor. This person had the tea.
Let's keep—yep, there we go, right there. So you see, we're pulling this up now. Gordon Reynolds, that top line—I was like, "Why is she thanking Bradley Cooper, Taylor Swift, Britney Spears? She wore her outfit, Austin Swift." I was like, "What? Why are we thanking Bradley Cooper?"
Well, this person has connected that dot for us very quickly. Let's keep reading what they had to say.
So she gets their thoughts. Everyone is like, "This movie makes no effing sense." Blake realizes she needs to hire an experienced film editor to fix it.
So Blake uses a Taylor Swift song in the movie that the studio loves having in there. Again, that fact check's true. We all know that they used a Taylor Swift song, and they did a lot of press about that.
Taylor Swift finds out that the original composer for the movie is someone that she worked with in the past that was mean to her, and she says, "It's either me or it's him. So you can use my song, but you got to get rid of this composer."
Sony fires that composer to keep the Taylor Swift song. I think that's everything I know, guys.
Guys, I'm feeling that every single bit of that post, which happened four months before the general public was aware of anything going on, before any lawsuits were filed, has to be absolute facts.
So that again puts Taylor Swift at the center of this "It Ends With Us" drama saga—composers leaving, music in there. She was involved during this time heavily with Ryan Reynolds and with Blake Lively, and for that reason, my friend, I am sorry, but you have to be subpoenaed.
I'm sorry, I'm sorry; you're coming to court. I am subpoenaing Taylor Swift, and Justin Baldoni, that I had nothing to do with, but I'm telling you right now, Baldoni, subpoena her because she's got something to do with this.
Okay, I'm not saying how much she has to do with this, but I'm saying that Reddit post—it's giving me like we're on the money here. Sorry, Tree, we're probably going to have to subpoena Bradley Cooper too.
I think Bradley Cooper's got to come. Sorry, guys, I want everybody in the courtroom. Okay, I'm going. I'm going to bring Savannah. I'm going to be dressed up. I am watching this go down next year. Everyone has to be subpoenaed.
There was much more going on here than meets the eye. Okay, this is like an octopus just covering everything. It's got more tentacles and arms than we could have ever imagined.
And by the way, speaking of subpoenas, we are especially subpoenaing Colleen Hoover, okay? The writer of the book, because there is something that stinks to high heaven there.
Why did she delete her Instagram on January 22nd? Okay, she didn't delete it when Blake Lively filed. She was with Blake Lively, all this stuff. She didn't delete it when Justin Baldoni filed.
I think he filed a couple of days later. Why did she move to delete her Instagram on January 22nd after Brian Friedman started making the rounds signaling that he was going to subpoena all of these communications?
I think we're trying to delete a digital trail. I don't like it. I also don't like that shortly after we had this announcement from a Variety article— I mean, shortly after her little sit-down with Blake Lively.
We showed you this clip; I'm going to show it to you again where she doesn't seem surprised when Blake Lively says, "If Colleen gets her movie back, I would love to be in the sequel."
This was on CNN, just reminding you. Okay, so this is her and Blake Lively having this conversation during the week that, I think it was August 7th, yeah, August 7th, when the movie "It Ends With Us" came out.
Reminding you what they said for a reason. Take a listen.
"Just exclusive, exclusive call. A chance that you can have a what? A sequel like 'It Starts With Us'? Oh, I mean, if Colleen has her rights, I'll go anywhere. I'll follow this woman anywhere."
Y'all heard her. Y'all heard her. I did hear her, and I heard you, Colleen. You didn't seem surprised by that, and Justin Baldoni already owned the rights. You sold them to him way far. The studio already owned the rights.
So what did you two know that the general public didn't know? Following that little sit-down, and then start looking into Colleen Hoover.
At some time around this period, at least according to this Variety article, she launched her own production company with the aim of getting control over her future books.
Okay, look at this. This is a Variety article that was published on October 7th. It says, "Colleen Hoover novel 'This is Another One: Reminders of Him' sets movie adaptation at Universal for Valentine's Day 2026."
Okay, buried in that article, it says she and Hoover—and they were referring to a partner—her partner, Levine, will produce through their newly launched production company, Heart Bones Entertainment.
So I think something's going on here. I think that we're going to have to bring in some Heart Bones Entertainment execs.
I even went so far as to look up their LLC and see if there had been any movement. So she filed for Heart Bones Entertainment LLC in Beverly Hills, California, in January of 2023.
I'll add it to our timeline, but there was a change. Go back to that. This screenshot doesn't show you. She changed her agent for this LLC in October, right?
So right around the time that this came and this announcement came of Heart Bones Entertainment, she moved to make her agent a very high-flying law firm—a lawyer there that works for a law firm that's recently changed its name.
I mean, they repped everyone from Johnny Depp to Brad Pitt, I mean, Jake Gyllenhaal. I'm going, "What's that move about?"
I've got questions. I got to dig a little into Colleen Hoover, this production company being launched. A little ha-ha, you heard her. Yep, we did hear her, Colleen.
We did. It's echoing in my mind, Colleen, and I find you to be suspicious, and I find Taylor Swift to be suspicious.
From what I know about Taylor Swift and how she got her masters and how the public still doesn't really understand how that happened from a business perspective, it's all about the press.
It's all about the press. If you can win the press war, then you can kind of do whatever you want in the background. I am feeling, I'm getting vibes that this entire move was about sinking Justin Baldoni potentially because they just wanted to get this movie and the sequel out of his hands.
A better story would have been, "Well, we're giving it to Colleen Hoover; she's the book owner; she has to own her masters," right? Rather than, "Who invested in that, by the way, Heart Bones?"
I'm just wondering, does she own it 100%? Did Ryan and Blake make an investment in it? I want to see their Instagram communications. You can't just throw bleach on it and smash a file and think that we're not going to find it.
There's digital footprints, Colleen, and I'm going to need yours. I need yours immediately.
Okay, so anyways, everyone right now is scattering into the wind, including—look at this headline—Blake Lively's own brother-in-law.
Okay, so Blake Lively has a sister that is more talented than her. Her name is Robin Lively. Absolutely loved her in "Teen Witch." Really a fantastic movie. Robin, anyways, Robin is married to a guy, and he initially came out and was throwing shade at Justin Baldoni.
Look at this headline: "Blake Lively's brother-in-law apologizes." This is today, guys, for anything unkind he said amid Justin Baldoni drama because now we're chasing down the real bullies, right?
And so, by the way, I think there's another headline of him saying that People magazine is covering it. I want to say I respect that. I respect if you got it wrong, like legitimately, and you maybe really thought she was sexually assaulted.
Now you've read through the complaint, and you're saying, "You know what? I shouldn't have done that." That is like respectable right there.
It's the people like Brandon Skiener who are silent right now who hyped this. Read the complaint, read the—we read it, and then we read Justin's, and it is despicable that you threw a guy under the bus.
I think Brandon Skiener has got to be subpoenaed. Okay, he absolutely must be subpoenaed into my courtroom. That's how I feel.
I want Brandon Skiener, Colleen Hoover, and Taylor Swift subpoenaed into this courtroom, and an article in the Daily Mail is not going to stop that, Taylor Swift's team.
So we will pause there. I guys, I have literally the most hilarious—this interview is going to make your day. Before we get there, though, I have to tell you this is a very big day for me.
I'm really excited. I am just beside myself. It has been such a labor of love, but our new website is up: candaceowens.com. I've been telling you about that. All of you guys emailing me about a "Shot in the Dark" series—today I officially launched the new website at candaceowens.com.
Obviously, could not have done it without the help of the people that developed this website at Patmos Development.
So here's what we're offering. Some of this is free, and some of it is behind a paywall. Just being honest with you, this was the largest investment I've ever made, that me and my husband have ever made in ourselves.
This has not been an easy project, but I just believe in the work that we're doing, and I don't want to be subject to YouTube's policies to be able to bring in, you know, a "Shot in the Dark" or talk about vaccines or, as we're doing, the Emmanuel Macron series.
So if you go to candaceowens.com, you can join the book club. So many people have been asking about all the books that we read. We're going to meet twice a month on this website.
First book up is going to be "Chaos," obviously, because that is the book that broke my brain. There's exclusive content that's going to be up there. "A Shot in the Dark," obviously being back, so the first 10 episodes are officially up if you want to subscribe to that and only that.
Then we just released a new episode every two weeks as we were doing when I was at Daily Wire. I can't wait for you guys to see the birth control series because that one completely shocked me to learn what was in there, but it makes all of this stuff safe.
Also, of course, the MCON episodes that would never be able to survive on here are going to be up. Those will not be put behind a paywall, so don't worry. The first episode will be on YouTube as we introduce you to it.
Then our upcoming "Becoming Bridget" series will live on the website for the things that they will definitely strike us for here on YouTube.
So if you want to join the book club, it's just $9.99 a month, which I felt was like a really great price for access to literally everything. $6.99 a month, and as always, the podcast episodes will still be free.
So do not worry if you're not in a place right now where you can do that. There will be all of these free and paid versions on the website. A lot more communication. I'm hoping to make like a mom Reddit, like a mom edit where we can talk and freely exchange information for all of us who don't vax our children, so that would be fun as well.
Anyways, I just want to thank Patmos Tech. They developed the website, and more importantly, to thank my husband because this is just the stuff that he does behind the scenes, and it has been a killer season for him getting this together, as well as my team—my producers, Mark, Skylar, Chris—everyone has played a part in this.
So candaceowens.com, and we have all that extra information.
Okay, guys, Abel and Ola Osundairo. Listen, six years ago, a terrible thing happened: a black guy walking through Chicago got beat up by some MAGA people.
Then we found out that he maybe beat up himself, but it was a traumatizing thing for him to go through nonetheless. So I just would like to show you this clip of Jesse on Jesse Smollett on ABC News after the horrific incident that has never happened before—a hate crime against thyself.
Take a listen.
"Who says Empire? This MAGA country ties a noose around your neck and pours bleach on you, and this is just a friendly fight. I will never be the man that this did not happen to. I am forever changed. I have fought for love. I'm an advocate. I respect too much the people who I am now one of those people who have been attacked in any way. You do such a disservice when you lie about