The Saturday Night Live team has shut down claims that Ryan Reynolds swapped a scripted joke for a gag about his wife Blake Lively’s ongoing legal drama with Justin Baldoni during the show’s 50th anniversary extravaganza.
The Deadpool actor, 48, appeared to allude to the high profile row between It Ends With Us co-stars Lively, 37, and Baldoni, 41, when he responded to a question from hosts Tina Fey and Amy Poehler as part of SNL50, a star-studded celebration of the comedy show’s milestone birthday.
When he was asked “how’s it going?”, Reynolds responded with “Great! Why? What have you heard?” in an apparent reference to the scandal.
SNL’s cue card holder Wally Feresten then told the Fifi, Fev and Nick podcast that Reynolds had “pitched” the line as a replacement for another joke.
“He had a different line in rehearsal, and he pitched that to replace it. So, that was his idea to do it,” he claimed. “We wouldn’t want to do anything too controversial unless they were in on it. Yeah, that was his line. That was his idea.”
However an SNL spokesperson denied the claim to The Hollywood Reporter and noted that Feresten is not involved in the show’s creative process.
A source close to Reynolds told the publication that the opening joke was pitched by SNL and did not change, whereas the follow-up joke, which included a reference to SNL’s recurring “Coneheads” sketch, was rewritten during rehearsal.
Rumours of a feud between Lively and Baldoni began to circulate last year when they appeared to keep their distance from one another while promoting It Ends With Us, an adaptation of Colleen Hoover’s novel, which Baldoni also directed.
In December, Lively sued Baldoni for sexual harassment and claimed that he had tried to “destroy” her reputation. Baldoni has denied the allegations.
He then filed a $250 million lawsuit against the New York Times after it published an article detailing Lively’s claims, and later launched a $400 million countersuit against Lively and Reynolds.
Baldoni’s lawyer Bryan Freedman has publicly criticised the SNL50 joke, telling Hot Mics With Billy Bush: “I’m unaware of anybody, frankly, whose wife has been sexually harassed and has made jokes about that type of situation.
“I can’t think of anyone who’s done anything like that. It surprised me.”
