The two called it a “huge damn mistake” in their submissive apology in 2020
Unless you’re living in complete seclusion at the moment, you’ll know that Blake Lively has been under constant fire over the past few weeks following the backlash to the drama It Ends With Us. It was a reckoning of sorts for Blake Lively, who was exposed for various things in her past that were considered problematic. While journalists are releasing old interviews and rumors of on-set drama continue to swirl, another issue has come to the forefront: Blake Lively married her husband Ryan Reynolds in a wedding ceremony that took place on a plantation.
Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds were married in 2012 at the Boone Hall plantation in South Carolina, a site that included nine slave cabins during the slave trade and was known as “Slave Street.” The couple’s choice of a place of misery and racism as their wedding location drew criticism at the time, but faced renewed backlash in 2018 for glorifying places where violence against black people was perpetrated, after Ryan Reynolds was branded a hypocrite after expressing support for the Marvel film Black Panther in a tweet.
In 2020, after the death of George Floyd, Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds expressed regret over the plantation wedding in an Instagram post. “We are ashamed that we were not educated in the past about how deeply rooted systemic racism is. We want to educate ourselves about others’ experiences and talk to our children about everything… especially our own complicity.” The couple donated $200,000 to the NAACP’s legal defense fund.
Ryan Reynolds also revealed that he and Blake Lively renewed their wedding vows in a private ceremony. “We remarried at home years ago – but shame has strange effects. A huge mistake like this can either make you shut down, or it can reframe things and move you to action,” Reynolds said. “That’s not to say you won’t screw up again. But reframing and challenging lifelong social conditioning is a work that never ends.”
He also said that he and Blake were “deeply and unconditionally sorry” for marrying on a plantation. “It’s impossible to reconcile,” Reynolds told Fast Company. “What we saw then was a wedding venue on Pinterest. What we saw later was a place built on a devastating tragedy.”
The wedding industry has adapted, and Pinterest has banned any images of plantation weddings from its website. “Weddings should be a symbol of love and unity. Plantations represent none of that,” a Pinterest spokesperson said.
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Featured image via Shutterstock / Shutterstock.
