SNL denies rumours Ryan Reynolds pitched Blake Lively, Justin Baldoni joke

Ryan Reynolds didn’t change the SNL script, after all.

The Deadpool star stirred up quite a storm at Saturday Night Live’s 50th anniversary special when he joked about his wife Blake Lively’s ongoing legal row with her It Ends With Us costar Justin Baldoni. An SNL staff member named Wally Feresten later claimed that Reynolds was the one who pitched the joke.

However, a spokesperson for SNL pushed back, telling People magazine that Feresten isn’t part of the writing team.

A source close to Reynolds also disputed the claim, saying, “The opening joke was pitched by SNL and never changed. They further clarified that it was the follow-up joke that was “rewritten in rehearsal.”

Reynolds and Lively attended the star-studded event on February 16, just as their legal battle with Justin Baldoni remained in the headlines. During a Q&A segment, Reynolds, 48, delivered a joke that seemed to reference the controversy.

When asked, "How’s it going?" he responded, “Great. Why? What have you heard?” before shifting to a bit about accidentally ingesting Coneheads prosthetics.

Feresten later claimed on the Fifi, Fev, and Nick radio show that Reynolds had pitched the joke himself. “That was his idea to do it,” Feresten said, adding that SNL wouldn’t have gone there unless Reynolds was on board.

Meanwhile, Baldoni’s lawyer, Bryan Freedman, criticised Reynolds for making light of a serious situation. “I’m unaware of anybody, frankly, whose wife has been sexually harassed and has made jokes about that type of situation,” he told Hot Mics with Billy Bush, adding that the moment “surprised” him.