SNL 50: Ryan Reynolds shocks audience with Blake Lively and ...

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Ryan Reynolds shocked SNL fans with a joke about the Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni drama.

The Deadpool star and his wife attended an anniversary event for the US sketch show, which has spent the weekend celebrating its 50th birthday with a series of ceremonies featuring many famous faces.

Reynolds and Lively’s appearance at the special was their first public showing amid the ongoing It Ends With Us scandal, which has seen both Lively and the film’s director and co-star Baldoni file respective lawsuits against each other.

In December, Lively sued Baldoni for sexual harassment and causing her “severe emotional distress”.

Meanwhile, Baldoni, who was subsequently dropped by his agency after the allegations emerged, denied all claims and sued Lively and Reynolds for $400m (£321m) for attempting to “destroy” his reputation and career.

SNL encouraged Reynolds, who previously hinted at a difficult time in his first social media post since Lively’s lawsuit, to reference the scandal in a small moment involving Tina Fey and Amy Poehler.

In a segment that saw the pair answer questions from celebrities in the audience, Reynolds, standing up, said he “had a question” for them. They replied: “Ryan! How’s it going?” to which Reynolds replied: “Great! Why, what have you heard?”

Lively, who was sat next to him, was smiling away – but when her husband alluded to their legal problems, she suddenly looked at him in shock in what was clearly a planned comedy bit.

The crowd laughed in surprise at the moment and, moments later, Lively was smiling again.

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Rumours of an on-set feud between Baldoni and Lively had been percolating online before it was confirmed, with the stars notably avoiding each other during the film’s promotional tour.

A New York federal judge has informed both parties to prepare for a trial in March 2026.

After this, the couple’s attorneys filed a notice stating that they will seek to dismiss Baldoni’s counter lawsuit.

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Days before the first court hearing on the case, Baldoni’s team launched a website containing two legal documents about the dispute with Lively. The documents feature an amendment claiming that the New York Times had access to Lively’s lawsuit against him at least 11 days before they published their report. The newspaper said that the filings were “rife with inaccuracies”.

Lively’s legal team has since reportedly sent subpoenas to the three major US phone companies AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile, requesting Baldoni’s phone records, according to US Weekly. They have also sought the phone records for Baldoni’s publicists, Jennifer Abel and Melissa Nathan, in an attempt to “expose the full web of individuals” they allege are involved in the smear campaign against Lively.

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“Such records will provide critical and irrefutable evidence not only about who, but also about when, where, and how their retaliation plan came together and operated,” Lively’s representative told the publication.

Baldoni’s lawyer, Bryan Freedman, responded to the subpoenas, telling US Weekly that while “subpoenas are an ordinary part of the litigation,” it’s the extent of what Lively’s lawyers are seeking that is “extraordinary.”

“They are asking for every single call, text, data log, and even real-time location information for the past 2.5 years, regardless of the sender, recipient, or subject matter,” he said. “This massive fishing expedition demonstrates that they are desperately seeking any factual basis for their provably false claims. They will find none.”