The Tragic True Life Story Of Ryan Reynolds
On paper, Ryan Reynolds appears to lead a charmed life. The star and guiding force behind the wildly popular "Deadpool" series of films — which joins the Marvel Cinematic Universe in 2024 with its third entry, "Deadpool & Wolverine" – Reynolds has enjoyed a long and successful career as both a film and television actor. He's also an entrepreneur who's co-owner of the Welsh football league Wrexham A.F.C. and has an ownership stake in Mint Mobile as well as an ongoing ownership interest in Aviation Gin, which was sold to Diageo in 2020. He's also happily married to actress Blake Lively, with whom he has four children.
While Reynolds' celebrity status has afforded him wealth and fame, it has kept neither sadness nor tragedy at bay in his life. Over the course of his life, Reynolds has experienced both personal and professional losses, including struggles with mental health, a fractured relationship with his father, divorce, and physical injuries. Following are all the details of the tragic true side of Ryan Reynolds' life story.
His tough father left him anxious and hurt
Ryan Reynolds has spoken and written about his relationship with his father, James, a former Royal Canadian Mounted Police officer who died in 2015. In an essay he wrote for Time in 2014, Reynolds described his father as "the toughest man alive: a former cop, former boxer and full-time landmine." Life in Reynolds' home was apparently fraught with anxiety over his father's expectations for his four sons; as Reynolds wrote, "He worked tirelessly to provide for his family and in return, you were expected to do what he said, often before he said it."
Tough, emotionally unavailable parents can feel like insurmountable obstacles in their children's lives, and Reynolds' father was no exception. "I always wanted a father ... who would put me on his lap and just dispense incredible life advice and guidance," he told GQ in 2016. "From my earliest memory of him, my father was that stereotypical tough guy. But it was just a veneer. The hardest part for me is that he was always kind of a mystery. I just don't feel like I ever had a real conversation with him."
Living under the pressure of predicting a parent's mercurial mood left Reynolds with lingering anxiety. "It was a somewhat impossible situation for any normally functioning nervous system," he wrote in Time. And Reynolds' anxiety would remain an issue that lasted well into his adult years.
Ryan Reynolds works hard to manage his mental health
According to the Anxiety and Depression Association of America, anxiety disorders — an umbrella term for an array of psychological conditions ranging from generalized anxiety disorder to phobias and obsessive-compulsive disorder — are the most common mental illness in the United States, affecting 40 million adults each year. Ryan Reynolds has counted himself among their number a long time. The actor began speaking about his struggles with anxiety in 2021.
When asked by Page Six in 2023 how he was able to keep his anxiety in check, Reynolds admitted, "Sometimes I'm really good at it, sometimes I'm not." Case in point: the first "Deadpool" movie, which earned a rapturous response when an early trailer was presented at Comic-Con in 2015. "By the time we were in post, we'd been to Comic-Con, and people went crazy for it," he told Variety. "The expectations were eating me alive." Reynolds credited his wife, Blake Lively, for helping him through that period. "I'm lucky to have her around just to keep me sane," he said.
He clarified in a 2022 interview on "CBS News Sunday Morning" the challenges he faces regularly. "I feel like I have two parts of my personality," he explained, saying his anxious side can take over when he is feeling uncomfortable. But as the years have gone by, he's gotten better at managing it, telling told Page Six, "I certainly have my own little rituals and those kinds of things that help me stay grounded and keep my mind from spinning out of control."
He suffered severe injuries from a drunk driver as a teenager
In 2015, Ryan Reynolds made news when he was struck by a paparazzo's car in a Vancouver parking garage. The actor escaped that incident largely unscathed, but many years earlier, he wasn't so lucky when he found himself on the wrong end of an automobile. In an interview with CTV News (via the New York Daily News), Reynolds recalled that as a teenager, he suffered serious injuries after being struck by a drunk driver. While partying with friends in Vancouver, Reynolds realized that he was too inebriated to drive — the legal drinking age in Canada is 18 or 19, depending on the province — and decided to walk home. Sadly, another driver hadn't made the same responsible choice as Reynolds and ran into him, resulting in extensive broken bones and other injuries.
"Broke every bone in my left side," he said, adding that he was also unconscious for three days. When he awoke, Reynolds found his dad at his bedside, though in a sorry state. "I guess I had been heaving in my unconscious," he explained. "And nothing says love like painting someone with three-day-old Gin Rummies. Just soaked the man head to toe in my vomit."
Though in hindsight Reynolds was able to joke about the accident, the actual collision appears to have taken a far greater toll on him. He capped the CTV interview by noting, "Since then, I've been a rickety, broken mess."
His divorce from Scarlett Johansson almost kept him from marrying again
Ryan Reynolds' marriage to fellow actor Blake Lively has been a long and seemingly happy one — the couple met while filming "Green Lantern" in 2010, wed in 2012, and have four children. It's easy to forget that this is actually Reynolds' second marriage. Reynolds was married to "Fly Me to the Moon" actress Scarlett Johansson from 2008 to 2010, when they both filed for divorce. That marriage was the culmination of a high-speed courtship: Reynolds and Johansson began dating in 2008 shortly after he split from a long-term relationship with singer Alanis Morissette. He and Johanon were engaged and married that same year.
The couple announced their separation in December 2010, and their divorce was finalized following year. The sudden collapse of their relationship appeared to leave Reynolds rattled: In an interview with Details in 2011 (via the Daily Mail), Reynolds claimed that he didn't think he wanted to get married again; however, getting to know Lively apparently put those fears to bed. The two were married the next year.
He took Green Lantern's failure personally
Ryan Reynolds has never been shy about his antipathy toward "Green Lantern." After supporting roles in "X-Men Origins: Wolverine" and "Blade: Trinity," "Green Lantern" marked his first go-round as the star of a live-action superhero film. Unfortunately, "Green Lantern" was a notorious box office bomb, loathed by critics and fans alike. He pokes fun at the 2011 flop constantly, including in "Deadpool 2" and in numerous interviews. In a conversation at the 2023 Just for Laughs festival (via Variety), he laid the blame at the feet of executive interference: "There was just too many people spending too much money and when there was a problem, rather than say, 'Okay, let's stop spending on special effects and think about character,'" he explained. "The thinking was never there to do that."
Though Reynolds jokes about "Green Lantern," he's also painfully aware of its legacy as a flop and has shouldered some of the responsibility for its failure. In a 2017 interview with Variety, Reynolds discussed how "Green Lantern" may have influenced Fox's reluctance to put "Deadpool" into production for nearly half a decade. "Part of the reason why 'Deadpool' wasn't greenlit right away was certainly because of me," he said. "If you have Robert Downey Jr. playing it – I don't know how much greener a light you can get to make a movie."
He was shocked by the death of a stunt person on Deadpool 2
Though "The Fall Guy" and other films suggest that the life of a stunt performer is action-packed, the reality of the situation is that stunt work is a dangerous profession that on occasion, results in the death of a stunt double or stunt actor. That devastating scenario occurred during the production of "Deadpool 2," when Joi Harris lost control of a motorcycle she was riding and crashed into the Shaw Tower in downtown Vancouver, killing her instantly. The tragic accident was the second fatality incurred in a period of two months by a stuntperson in North America in 2017 — in the other incident, a stuntman died on the set of a TV show, "The Walking Dead." A lawsuit by Harris' family was later settled out of court by Fox.
As star, co-writer, and co-producer of the film, Ryan Reynolds took it upon himself to issue a statement in regard to Harris' death. "We're heartbroken, shocked, and devastated," he wrote on his X (formerly Twitter) account. "But [we] recognize nothing can come close to the grief and inexplicable pain her family and loved ones must feel in this moment. My heart pours out to them — along with each and every person she touched in this world."
A friend betrayed him by selling pictures of his children
Ryan Reynolds and Blake Lively are one of a growing number of celebrity parents who have made a conscious effort to keep their children out of the glare of paparazzi. They've been largely successful at achieving this goal for their four children and sternly admonishing outlets for running pics of their kids without permission. However, Reynolds was blindsided when he discovered that a close friend was selling pictures of one of his children.
Reynolds relayed the story in a 2015 issue of GQ, where he said that the friend in question was someone he'd known his whole life. This individual was selling the pictures for financial gain. "I kind of got in front of it, which is good," he said. "But it was a slightly dark period. A bad couple of weeks."
Reynolds got in front of the problem by cutting the friend out of his life. "There really isn't a conversation to have. It's just, 'Oh, well, now I'm never going to see you or talk to you again, unfortunately,'" he explained. But the fallout of the revelation and the subsequent loss of his friend hit Reynolds on an emotional level. "It was like a death," he said. "It was like one of those devastating things to find out."
A chance medical procedure revealed a potentially life-threatening illness
According to the American Cancer Society, the chances to develop colorectal cancer during their lifetime is alarmingly high: 1 in 23 for men and 1 in 25 for women. It's the second most common cause of cancer-related death in the United States, which is why the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force recommends regular screening for the disease beginning at age 45. When Ryan Reynolds reached that age in 2022, he teamed with the Colorectal Cancer Alliance to form Lead from Behind, an organization devoted to bringing awareness to screening for the disease. And being Ryan Reynolds, he took this effort one step further.
In a YouTube video, Reynolds discussed a bet he made with Rob McElhenney: If his Wrexham partner learned to speak Welsh, he would not only undergo his first colonoscopy but also let a documentary crew film the experience. Spoiler alert: Reynolds lost the bet and underwent the procedure, as did McElhenney in the spirit of fairness.
The decision proved to be a potentially life-saving one for Reynolds: Gastroenterologist and CBS News chief medical correspondent Dr. Jon LaPook, who conducted the procedure, found and removed what he described as an "extremely subtle polyp" in Reynolds' colon. Over time, these polyps can potentially turn cancerous and lead to serious health risks. As LaPook said in the video, "This was potentially lifesaving for you. I am not being overly dramatic."
Ryan Reynolds mourned the deaths of Wrexham fans and staffers
For Ryan Reynolds, the joy of seeing his Welsh soccer club Wrexham A.F.C. promoted to a higher division in 2024 after languishing for years in the game's lower ranks was tempered by the loss of several fans and individuals connected to the team. In 2023, Roger Lloyd, a longtime Wrexham steward (an official in charge of fan experience and safety at matches) died shortly after overseeing his last game on December 23, while the father of Wrexham captain Ben Tozer died of leukemia in July 2023. Reynolds paid tribute to both men on his X account, writing "Sending so much love to the Tozer family" shortly after the news of the team captain's father was made public.
One of the most heartbreaking losses for Reynolds and the Wrexham family came in May 2023 when Jay Fear — a fan of both Wrexham and Reynolds — died of terminal appendix cancer. Fear, a 45-year-old father of two, fulfilled a lifelong dream of seeing Wrexham through the charity Bucket List, which sent him and his family to the club's penultimate match on April 18, 2023. Fear also met with Reynolds, who gave him a glove worn by the actor in "Deadpool 2" and an offer to visit the set of the third film in London. Sadly, Reynolds was unable to make good on that promise: Fear died in May 2023. In an interview with the BBC, Reynolds paid tribute to Fear, saying, "I wonder if I'd have the same unwavering joy if our roles were reversed."
Ryan Reynolds lost a good friend from the MCU
The death of art director and production designer Ray Chan in April 2024 was a considerable loss to the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Chan, who died at the age of 56, helped to define the look of numerous MCU titles, including "Guardians of the Galaxy," "Doctor Strange," and "Avengers: Endgame." One of his last Marvel projects was "Deadpool & Wolverine," and when Chan died, Ryan Reynolds paid moving tribute to him on his social media page.
"As Production Designer, he was as important a creative force on Deadpool & Wolverine as the writers, director and stars," he wrote on his X (formerly Twitter) page. "He built entire worlds from scratch – and did so in the most collaborative and inclusive ways." Reynolds also made a moving point of noting that while and collaborators will miss Chan, he'll be missed the most by his family.
Reynolds closed the tribute on a personal note, recalling a conversation they had two weeks prior to his death. "One of last things I said to him was that he makes magic and there's nobody on earth like him," Reynolds wrote. "So ... of all the final things you could say to someone you adore, that's a little scrap of consolation I'll hang onto forever."