Support truly
independent journalism
Our mission is to deliver unbiased, fact-based reporting that holds power to account and exposes the truth.
Whether $5 or $50, every contribution counts.
Support us to deliver journalism without an agenda.
Louise Thomas
Editor
Ryan Reynolds has quipped about Taylor Swift’s “cost-prohibitive” rates for babysitting his four children with wife Blake Lively.
The Deadpool and Wolverine star, 47, recently cracked a joke about the billionaire singer-songwriter’s costly fee during a joint E! News interview with Hugh Jackman. As his co-star admitted that the 14-time Grammy winner is his family’s nanny, Reynolds replied: “The cost of that is…”
“I believe the accountant said ‘Cost-prohibitive,’” he continued. “But I think what he meant was, ‘Cost-insane-what-are-you-doing-I’m-no-longer-your-accountant.’”
Reynolds and Lively have been close friends with Swift for nearly a decade. The couple, who were married in 2012, was most recently spotted at the “Anti-Hero” singer’s Eras Tour stop in Madrid, Spain, in May. The Green Lantern star and the Gossip Girl alum, 36, were seen singing along and snapping selfies with their daughters – James, nine, Inez, seven, and Betty, four – in a video shared to TikTok.
Lively was seen holding Betty in her arms, while James and Ines stood in front of their dad. At one point, Swift could be heard on stage singing the track “Betty” off her 2020 album, Folklore. In the song, she famously uses the names of all three of Reynolds and Lively’s daughters. As Swift sang the lyric, “You heard the rumors from Inez,” Lively was seen smiling and pointing to her daughter Inez at the sound of the name-drop.
Meanwhile, James grabbed her younger sister’s arms and bounced them up and down in the air. As for Reynolds, he stood behind his daughters and quietly mouthed the lyrics to the song.
The Simple Favor star also took her daughters to Swift’s first Madrid concert earlier that week, where the “Bad Blood” singer gave another special shoutout to Lively’s girls. “I have to say that on Folklore, some of my favorite characters are named James, Inez and Betty,” Swift said into the microphone, according to another viral TikTok video.
This isn’t the first time Swift has featured Reynolds and Lively’s daughters on one of her tracks. Swift famously included James on her 2017 album Reputation, in which the then-two-year-old can be heard saying the word “gorgeous” in the opening of Swift’s song, “Gorgeous”.
When Swift decided to name-drop their children in the song “Betty”, the A-list couple had yet to publicly reveal the name of their youngest daughter at the time. However, it didn’t seem to bother Reynolds and Lively. Speaking to Jess Cagle during a SiriusXM Town Hall event in 2021, Reynolds explained that he and his wife were flattered when Swift chose to use their daughters’ names in her song because they trust the singer “implicitly”.
“The names are the names of our kids, but you know, we trust her implicitly and she’s very sensitive to any of that stuff. And obviously the song has nothing to do with our kids other than our kids’ names,” Reynolds said. “We thought it was pretty, pretty damn amazing. We still do. You know, I still walk down the street and shake my head thinking: ‘I can’t believe that happened.’”
Reynolds and Lively also welcomed a fourth child in February 2023, whose name has not been revealed.
