Ryan Reynolds has spoken out about his 2012 wedding to Blake Lively that took place at a former plantation, saying it is something the couple will “always be deeply and unreservedly sorry for.”
In an interview with Fast Company published on Tuesday, the Deadpool actor discussed the impact of the nationwide protests sparked by the police killing of George Floyd.
“It’s something we’ll always be deeply and unreservedly sorry for,” he told the publication. “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. Years ago we got married again at home — but shame works in weird ways.
“A giant fucking mistake like that can either cause you to shut down or it can reframe things and move you into action. It doesn’t mean you won’t fuck up again. But repatterning and challenging lifelong social conditioning is a job that doesn’t end.”
Reynolds and Lively have been called out intermittently over the years for their choice of wedding venue ― Boone Hall in South Carolina. But a 2018 tweet from Reynolds in praise of the film Black Panther triggered a more widespread conversation. Many people on Twitter responded to the celebratory tweet about the first superhero movie with a primarily Black cast by pointing out the hypocrisy.
In the current cultural moment, the couple has again been criticised for their plantation wedding, and they have been expressing their regret. They donated $200,000 to the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund at the end of May and issued a social media statement saying: “We’re ashamed that in the past we’ve allowed ourselves to be uninformed about how deeply rooted systemic racism is.”
Here’s the entire statement:
Reynolds also told Fast Company that his production company, Maximum Effort, is focusing on diverse hiring and equity within the company.
“Representation and diversity need to be completely immersive,” the 43-year-old. said. “Like, it needs to be embedded at the root of storytelling, and that’s in both marketing and Hollywood. When you add perspective and insight that isn’t your own, you grow. And you grow your company, too.”