A-list couple Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds have a long history of trolling each other and, honestly, the jabs they’re seemingly always taking at each other just add to the notion that they represent “couples goals.” It’s one thing, however, to joke on social media that you wish the breakup rumors were true or take shots at the Deadpool star for taking a sabbatical, but the A Simple Favor actress just leveled up on her trolling. Turns out she signed up for an ESPN+ account, all in the name of watching her husband suffer.
Back in 2020 Ryan Reynolds and It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia star Rob McElhenney purchased the Welsh football team Wrexham AFC (documenting their journey on the FX docuseries Welcome to Wrexham). It turns out the team had a huge game Sunday, with Wrexham AFC facing Sheffield United in the fourth round of the FA Cup, and Reynolds was in attendance. Meanwhile, Blake Lively, who is pregnant with the couple’s fourth child, wanted to keep up with all the action (and Reynolds’ anxiety, apparently), so she ponied up for an ESPN+ subscription, joking on Instagram Stories:
Ouch! The actress noted that it was “worth it” to pay for the channel just to watch Ryan Reynolds’ “crippling anxiety live,” before mentioning how “insane” the game was. It sounds like the other team was favored to win the match, so the fact that Wrexham AFC was in the lead at this time of this post explains Reynolds’ stressed-out expression that was broadcast to ESPN+ subscribers worldwide. (The game reportedly ended in a tie, by the way.)
In reality, it can’t have been easy for Blake Lively to see what her husband was going through at the game in Wrexham, Wales and, as is the case for all of the couple’s social media trolling, there was certainly love and concern behind the jokes. The Gossip Girl alum has seemingly mastered the balance of expressing her love and keeping her hubby humble.
In November, she commented on a video of Ryan Reynolds and Will Ferrell rehearsing a dance number for their holiday movie Spirited, asking, “Can you get pregnant while pregnant??” She also joked about the time she “f*d her hairdresser,” as they exchanged hilarious Valentine’s Day messages but proceeded to blame him for a bad hair day that followed.
The ESPN+ post wasn’t even the first time in 2023 that the Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants alum has publicly trolled her husband. She joked early in January that despite being pregnant, she was tattooing Reynolds’ face on her thigh. (He responded in kind, saying he also had his face inked on his own thigh.)
While Ryan Reynolds will not appear on the 2023 movie schedule, in 2024, we’ll get to see him and Hugh Jackman in the highly anticipated Deadpool 3. Blake Lively, meanwhile, was just cast (with mixed reactions) in the book-to-screen adaptation of Colleen Hoover’s It Ends With Us and will also reunite with Anna Kendrick for a sequel to A Simple Favor, in addition to three other projects she’s got in the works. You can also stream Season 1 of Welcome to Wrexham with a Hulu subscription.
