After People broke the story that the two were “very much a couple”, having spent time together over Reynolds’ birthday weekend, they continued to get closer in the following months and met each other’s families, reported PopSugar.
Lively and Reynolds were married in September 2012 in a small ceremony at a former plantation in South Carolina (the pair later apologised for not researching the history of the venue, which had left them feeling “ashamed”).
Since then, the couple have had four children – James, 9, Inez, 7, Betty, 4, and Olin, who was born in February last year.
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Acting careers
Lively, the daughter of actor Ernie Lively and talent scout Elaine, began her acting career at 10 years old, starring in her father’s film Sandman (1998), in which he was the director.
After a series of small gigs, Lively shot to fame in 2005 when she starred in The Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants. The film saw Lively nominated for a Teen Choice Award when she was 16 and still finishing high school.
Lively went on to play the lead character, Serena van der Woodsen, in Gossip Girl.
The cult 2000s show was a cultural phenomenon and a commercial success worldwide.
During the height of Gossip Girl, Lively was reportedly earning US$60,000 ($99,500) per episode.
Once she had been elevated to household name status, Lively began to star in films such as The Shallows (2016), A Simple Favor (2018), and It Ends With Us (2024).
Reynolds has been acting since 1991, having kicked off his career in his home country of Canada starring in the teen soap drama Hillside (also known as Fifteen).
Born into a family of four boys in Vancouver, Reynolds moved back and forth from acting as he debated whether to pursue a career in it, having had limited success in his early years.
But after several stints in television shows and small movies throughout the 1990s, Reynolds moved to the Hollywood big screen when he appeared in Blade: Trinity as Hannibal King in the 2004 movie.
Reynolds’ big-ticket appearances over the years have included lead roles in The Amityville Horror (2005), Green Lantern, and Free Guy (2021), and he has since become one of Hollywood’s most highly-prized (and bankable) male actors.
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Reynolds’ most successful movies to date have been in the Deadpool franchise, in which Reynolds plays Wade Wilson. The actor has had a producer role in all three films and a writing role for the most recent two, .
The R-rated films have collectively grossed more than US$2.6 billion ($4.3b) at the box office globally, making Deadpool one of the most successful superhero characters in Marvel cinematic history.
What else does Reynolds do?
Beyond acting, Reynolds is also a successful entrepreneur who became one of the richest celebrities on the planet by pursuing and investing in various business ventures throughout his career.
Aviation Gin
Aviation American Gin was first produced in Portland, Oregon, in 2006 by founders Christian Krogstad and Ryan Magarian.
The brand was sold to a New York-based distributor a decade later, but in 2018, Forbes reported the Deadpool star had acquired a “significant” minority stake in the company.
But why gin, and what’s so special about Aviation Gin? Reynolds let his fans know when sharing the news of his investment.
“About a year ago, I tried Aviation for the first time. Since that day, I’ve spent my time finding some way to infiltrate the company,” said Reynolds. “I did this for one simple reason: It’s the best damn gin on the planet.”
Reynolds took up a seat on the board, also serving as creative director and a spokesperson for the brand.
Under his guidance, the brand’s gin sales exploded, becoming the second-largest premium gin brand in the US by 2020.
In August of that year, the brand was sold to Diageo for an estimated US$610 million, according to Entertainment Tonight, with Reynolds reportedly earning several million dollars through the acquisition.
The Fall Guy star continues to serve as a representative for the brand.
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Mint Mobile
In November 2019, Reynolds invested in the low-cost mobile service brand Mint Mobile, acquiring a 20-25% stake in the brand, reported CNET.
The actor starred in several advertisem*nts for the company, and founder David Glickman noted Reynolds had impressed him with the “guerilla marketing” strategy he adopted for Deadpool in an interview with Inc.
In March 2023, T-Mobile announced it was closing a deal to acquire Mint Mobile for US$1.35b in a cash-and-stock deal.
Given Reynolds’ ownership in the brand, the deal reportedly left the A-lister with US$70m after tax and more than US$200m in T-Mobile shares, reported the Wall Street Journal.
“I never dreamt I’d own a wireless company and I certainly never dreamt I’d sell it to T-Mobile,” Reynolds wrote on X at the time.
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“Life is strange and I’m incredibly proud and grateful.”
Wrexham AFC
Reynolds teamed up with fellow actor Rob McElhenney to purchase the football league team Wrexham AFC, which is based in Wrexham, Wales.
Through their RR McReynolds Company LLC, the deal to acquire the sports team, which had fallen out of the top tiers of the English Football League (EFL), was backed by 98.6% of its trust’s members and reportedly cost the actors next to nothing to purchase.
Instead, Reynolds and McElhenney pledged to donate US$2.6m towards improving the club’s infrastructure and create a docuseries focused on the club from the point of the change in ownership.
This docuseries was eventually released as Welcome to Wrexham, debuting in August 2022 on Disney+.
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Under the new celebrity ownership, Wrexham AFC has risen to EFL League Two and later EFL League One, the third tier of the English football league system.
This growth marked the first time the club had returned to the EFL since 2008.
What else does Lively do?
Lively has also invested in several of her own business projects, although their success has been mixed over the years.
Preserve
Lively launched the Preserve website in 2014, intending for it to operate as a bespoke marketplace that bridged the gap between producers of artisan products and like-minded consumers.
Originally, Lively and her team were supposed to curate items sold on the virtual shop. However, the Gossip Girl actor shut down the website only one year after it was launched, admitting it was launched too early and claiming that it “never caught up to its original mission”.
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“It’s not making a difference in people’s lives, whether superficially or in a meaningful way,” Lively told Vogue when announcing its closure.
“And that’s the whole reason I started this company, not just to fluff myself, like, ‘I’m a celebrity! People will care what I have to say!’
“It was so never meant to be that, and that kind of became the crutch because it was already up and already running, and it’s hard to build a brand when you’re running full steam ahead – how do you catch up?”
Blake Brown
As her most recent endeavour, Lively launched Blake Brown hair care exclusively to Target stores on August 4.
Said to be seven years in the making, the hair care brand is inspired by Lively’s own personal hair routine.
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The products, which include strengthening shampoo, nourishing masks, and a leave-in “potion”, are vegan and animal cruelty-free, and the plastic packaging is 100% recycled.
Speaking to Target’s senior vice-president of merchandising for essentials and beauty, Amanda Nusz, about the launch of the brand, Lively said the name took inspiration from her father’s last name.
“My dad took ‘Lively’ from my mom, but Blake Brown is on my birth certificate,” Lively said.
“It was important for me to put my name on this brand because I worked so hard on it and because it is so personal to me, but I didn’t want to use ‘Lively.’
“I want the brand to stand on its own and earn people’s respect, and it felt like ‘Blake Brown’ was the answer.”
Given its recent launch, it is too soon to tell how much of an impact Lively’s hair care brand will have on her fortune, although Launchmetrics found the new line had generated more than US$16m in media impact value within its first week.
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What is the combined net worth of Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds?
With a longstanding acting career and two homes in upstate New York and New York City that she owns with her husband, Lively is worth US$30m, according to Celebrity Net Worth.
Reynolds, on the other hand, has a net worth of US$350m, according to Celebrity Net Worth, which he first accumulated through acting roles and later business investments in the companies outlined above.
Together, the Hollywood couple have a combined net worth of US$380m, reflecting their smashing entrepreneurial success and power couple status.
Tom Rose is a digital producer and editorial assistant for the NZ Herald who focuses on lifestyle, entertainment, and travel.
