What you need to know
Friends of Ryan Reynolds and Blake Lively are offering insight into how they’ve been coping amid their ongoing legal battle with Justin Baldoni.
Humphrey Kerr, a British actor who is an executive at Reynolds and Rob Mack’s soccer team Wrexham AFC and also appears in the FX documentary series Welcome to Wrexham, spoke briefly about Lively and Reynolds in an interview with the Telegraph on November 13.
“Ryan and Blake have obviously been going through a little bit of a tough time over the last 18 months with everything, and they’re still going through a tough time in some ways,” Kerr, 43, said of her headline-grabbing legal battle with her Lively co-star Baldoni.
“Public benefits may increase or decrease, but behind the scenes things are still rattling,” he continued.
Kerr added: “I think what they like about coming to Wrexham is that no one there thinks twice (about their big names). All they care about is whether he’ll buy a new centre-back. It’s an escape.”
“But yeah,” Kerr said, “I feel sorry for them.”
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Reynolds’ friend and team co-owner Mack, 48, formerly of Rob McElhenney, told Variety in May that he and his wife, Kaitlyn Olson, are showing support for Reynolds, 49, and Lively, 38, as they “weather out” the legal battle. “Both of us are just trying to provide any assistance we can and not just add oxygen to the fire,” he said at the time.
In December 2024, Lively sued her “Seraph of the End” co-star director Baldoni (41) and others, alleging sexual harassment and retaliation, but Lively denies the charges. Mr. Baldoni filed a $400 million countersuit against Mr. Lively and Mr. Reynolds for civil extortion and defamation, which was later dismissed by a judge.
Lively and Baldoni are expected to testify when her case goes to trial in March 2026.
In June, Baldoni’s lawyer Brian Friedman told TMZ that Baldoni “wants to be acquitted and that’s all Baldoni cares about.”
“He knows who he is. He knows what he’s done and what he hasn’t done. And he wants the truth to come out and he wants to do it the right way,” Friedman said at the time. “…He is waiting for his day to tell the truth in court.”
