Ryan Reynolds made a veiled reference to the legal drama involving his wife, Blake Lively, and Justin Baldoni, on NBC‘s Saturday Night Live 50th anniversary special.
About an hour into Sunday’s three-hour-plus special, former castmembers Tina Fey and Amy Poehler appeared onstage to take questions from the audience.
One of the many stars in the audience was onetime host Ryan Reynolds, who was sitting next to a smiling Lively.
Asked how he was doing, Reynolds replied, “Great!” Then, seeming concerned, he asked, “Why, what have you heard?”
Lively then looked sharply at Reynolds and briefly lost her smile. It’s safe to assume that her stern look was part of the bit.
Before the broadcast, Reynolds and Lively walked the red carpet together.
Lively filed an 80-page complaint against her It Ends With Us co-star and director, Baldoni, accusing him of sexual harassment and launching a smear campaign against her. Baldoni responded by filing a $400 million lawsuit against both Lively and Reynolds alleging extortion and defamation.
Also part of the Poeher-Fey segment were Tim Meadows, Cher, Quinta Brunson, Keith Richards, Jon Hamm (who asked if he was “funny”), Zach Galifianakis, Bad Bunny, Jason Momoa, Peyton Manning (who told Lorne Michaels never to retire and joked about the downside of it) and Seth Meyers, who told Fey and Poehler that the Q&A “feels like a way to give airtime to some other celebrities not in the show.”
Replied Fey: “Not to me, what do you think, Rev. Al Sharpton and Ray Romano?”
The camera then cut to Romano and Sharpton, who said, “It feels natural to us.”
Also during the bit, it was shown that Jon Lovitz was seated not seated in the studio but instead at the American Girl store across the street. He was shown surrounded by dolls. Julia Louis-Dreyfus, in the audience, took Lovitz’s seat for her blind dog.
Steve Martin performed the opening monologue on the SNL special, with Sabrina Carpenter and Paul Simon kicking off the broadcast with “Homeward Bound.”