After over ten years of marriage and four children, Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds are arguably one of the strongest Hollywood couples.
Their gushing public tributes, which often include poking fun at one another, have left many wondering about their relationship secrets. While they keep their home life with daughters James, eight, Inez, six and Betty, three, and their new baby under wraps, they have treated fans to rare comments about their marriage, which started with a controversial wedding in 2012.
Why did Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds apologise for their wedding?
The Gossip Girl actress and the Deadpool actor exchanged vows at Boone Hall Plantation in Mount Pleasant, South Carolina, on September 9 2012, which Ryan later called "a giant mistake."
Ryan and Blake came under scrutiny for glamourizing a site where violence against Black slaves once took place. "It's something we'll always be deeply and unreservedly sorry for," Ryan said in Fast Company's September 2020 issue.
"It's impossible to reconcile. What we saw at the time was a wedding venue on Pinterest. What we saw after was a place built upon devastating tragedy," he added, and Pinterest has since banned pictures of all plantation weddings.
Photos the couple shared exclusively with Martha Stewart Weddings gave a glimpse of Blake's stunning rose-gold embellished Marchesa wedding dress – which she accidentally burnt – and their Lorraine Schwartz wedding bands.
Their controversial first wedding led them to tie the knot for a second time at their home in an equally secret celebration which The Hitman's Bodyguard star simply said happened "years ago".
What are Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds' marriage secrets?
Friendship
The actors met on the set of Green Lantern in 2010, but their relationship didn't begin until a year later – and they credit their happiness to the foundation they built as friends. Ryan explained that their romance began on a double date with different people, but it was "the most awkward date" for their partners as there were "fireworks" between himself and Blake.
"We were buddies for a long time, which I think is the best way to have a relationship," Ryan told Entertainment Weekly in a 2016 radio interview.
Blake similarly explained to Glamour magazine: "I treat him like my girlfriend," and she turns to him for advice. "I'm like, 'Hey, this happened. It upset me. This is how I feel. What do I do?' He does the same for me. He treats me like his best buddy."
She even plainly admitted that their solid friendship is what she believes to be their "secret." "He's my friend, first and foremost, still", she told Sirius XM. "Not just in our history, but in everyday life. He's my friend first and I think that's the secret to happiness. I don't know the secret to happiness, but it's the secret to my happiness, at least."
Humor
There's no denying that humor is a big part of Blake and Ryan's relationship. They never miss the opportunity to make a quick-witted joke at the expense of one another, whether it's Ryan pointing out Blake's photoshopped heels in a photo of her voting, or Blake cropping her husband out of a photo of herself with Ryan Gosling as she wished him a happy birthday.
The A Simple Favour star told HELLO! that his humor has rubbed off on her. She explained: "My husband comes from improv comedy, so all day long we're teasing each other and having fun, so just being married to him has sharpened my comedy skills unlike any crash course I could take in comedy."
Empathy
Jokes aside, they have shared sweet words for one another in the past. Praising his wife, he told Humans of New York: "She always responds with empathy. She meets anger with empathy. She meets hate with empathy.
"She'll take the time to imagine what happened to a person when they were five or six years old. And she's made me a more empathetic person. I had a very fractured relationship with my father. Before he died, she made me remember things I didn't want to remember. She made me remember the good times."
He also got tearful during his speech while accepting his Icon Award at the 2022 People's Choice Awards. "Thank you Blake and my three daughters," he said. "Blake and my girls, you are quite literally my heart, hope and happiness. I joke that my family exhausts me, but you give me more strength than any man can possibly deserve".
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