Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds do the normal things
It's Gossip Time!
Hello and welcome to Gossip Time, a weekly guide to the stars by Allie Jones. This week: a celebrity marriage is normal, an actress has trouble on the family farm, and Jessica Simpson enters the chat.
When you think of a good, solid marriage, does a specific couple come to mind? If your first thought was, “Yes, and it’s Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds,” please send me a DM, because I’d love to chat with the source of this Us Weekly article entitled, “Exclusive: Inside Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds ‘Solid’ Marriage.”
This is a real story, and it appeared on the cover of the tabloid this week. In it, a source reveals that Reynolds, 44, and Lively, 33, are “more committed to their marriage” than ever. The source continued with their assessment of the couple’s relationship thusly: “Blake and Ryan have had their ups and downs like any couple, but overall, they’re very solid.”
Hm. What is the point of this update? That’s what we have to figure out.
Typically, when a tabloid runs a story about the state of a famous couple’s partnership, it’s in response to something negative. For example: Last year, after Justin Timberlake was photographed drunkenly holding hands with his co-star Alisha Wainwright on a New Orleans balcony, we got a lot of stories about how Timberlake and his wife Jessica Biel were actually doing fine, thanks. Or, for another example: In 2015, when it seemed obvious to everyone that Ben Affleck and Jennifer Garner were going to get divorced, People ran story after story about how they were totally still together, until eventually Affleck and Garner gave the quasi-respectable tabloid the exclusive on their split.
But as far as we know, Lively and Reynolds are not facing similar circumstances. Ever since the two got married on a South Carolina plantation in 2012, they have successfully avoided rumors of marital discord. (Reynolds finally apologized for their horrendous choice of a wedding venue in an interview earlier this year.)
So what’s up with the solidly married couple now? Well, according to Us Weekly’s talkative source, just normal things. “Away from the cameras, people may find it surprising to hear they’re just a regular couple who love to hang out and do the normal things together without making a song and dance about it all,” said the insider.
Sure. And furthermore, in case you had any doubt, Lively and Reynolds do in fact live and raise their children together. “When Ryan is shooting a movie, Blake and the kids always come with him, the same goes for Blake,” the source continued. “They like to keep their family together as much as possible.”
All statements you might make about a solid, normal couple, if perhaps you were compelled to in a court of law.
For now, we’ll just have to wait and see if everything is, in fact, really normal and fine with Lively and Reynolds, or if this exclusive is a sign of a soon-to-be revealed scandal. According to Instagram, Reynolds is currently filming a Netflix movie called The Adam Project in his hometown of Vancouver. Based on Us Weekly’s reporting, I’m sure Lively is right there with him, but please let me know if you hear differently.
Also filming this week in Boston is Don’t Look Up, a new Adam McKay comedy starring Lively’s ex-boyfriend Leo DiCaprio and Jennifer Lawrence. You can see a photo of the stars walking around in some interesting wigs here. DiCaprio, of course, is dating 23-year-old model and actress Cami Morrone, while Lawrence is married to New York art guy Cooke Maroney.
No word from Us Weekly on the state of her marriage, but Lawrence has had some family troubles recently. TMZ reported last weekend that a fire broke out at her family’s farm in Louisville, Kentucky. No one was hurt, but a barn on the property, which Lawrence’s brother Blaine Lawrence used to operate a kids’ summer camp, was destroyed. According to TMZ, Blaine sent an email to past campers asking for donations to repair the damage. Lawrence quickly followed that up with a statement to People, expressing gratitude to the Louisville community and assuring the public that “my family and I are working together to help Blaine through this.”
It’s probably tricky for celebrities to navigate issues with family businesses. Lawrence could obviously afford to pay for the farm’s repairs herself, but who knows what kind of arrangement they’ve worked out.
This reminds me of a fact I recently learned from Cindy Adams, the 90-year-old gossip columnist still writing for Page Six. Last month, just after People reported that Olivia Wilde and Jason Sudeikis had called off their seven-year engagement, Adams revealed that Sudeikis’s sister Lindsay Sudeikis, a former nun, has an online business where she offers spiritual counseling and something called “ancestral healing” informed by Catholic mysticism, which sounds amazing. According to Adams, Wilde actually participated in this venture when she and Jason were still together, giving talks on “kindness, goodness, and doing and giving charity.”
Have you recently (or not recently) encountered a celebrity’s sibling’s business? I’d love to hear all about it.
STUFF BY HILARY DUFF: While it’s true that Mariah Carey, Ariana Grande, and Jennifer Hudson released a new Christmas single today, my most trusted news outlet, the Hilary Duff News Twitter account, has another crucial holiday music headline to consider.
(The video in that post has no sound.)
Finally, I’ll leave you with a quick update from Jessica Simpson:
So far, she hasn’t updated her feed with any particular thoughts about the HBO drama, but I appreciate her getting the word out (a full 24 hours after the finale aired).
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