Ryan Reynolds Allegedly Mocked Justin Baldoni in ‘Deadpool & Wolverine’—Here’s Why That Could Be Significant

Amid the ongoing messy legal battle between Justin Baldoni and Blake Lively/Ryan Reynolds over alleged misconduct on the set of It Ends With Us and alleged retaliation as the movie came out, a minor character from the latest Deadpool film has emerged as a potential…piece of evidence? Here’s what’s up.

ICYMI, Deadpool & Wolverine is a dark meta-comedy in which Deadpool, played by Lively’s husband, Reynolds (who also worked on the script, and is one of the film’s executive producers), encounters different versions of himself, like Dogpool, Babypool, and Ladypool, the latter of whom is played by Lively. He also meets Nicepool, a long-haired, self-identified male feminist that, Baldoni’s lawyer now says, is meant to mock his client. This thread sums up the similarities between Nicepool and Baldoni, which basically come down to the character being obnoxious and faux sensitive.

Some of the similarities are more pointed than others. Deadpool crying out for an intimacy coordinator, for instance, could be interpreted as a general “Hollywood these days” joke, whereas the (cut) line about Nicepool monetizing the women’s movement through a podcast…really does seem like a jab at Baldoni, who cohosted the Man Enough podcast until his cohost, Liz Plank, quit the show amid Lively’s accusations. As It Ends With Us and Deadpool & Wolverine were shot around the same time, the theory that Nicepool is Baldoni lends credence to the idea that Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds had issues with Justin Baldoni from the jump.

However, according to Baldoni’s lawyer, Bryan Freedman—as he laid out during a conversation with Megyn Kelly—mocking Baldoni undermines the seriousness of their accusation of sexual harassment. Freedman argued, essentially, that if your wife is being mistreated, why would you joke about it? (It bears pointing out that people deal with traumas in many different ways. There is no “right” way to respond.) Freedman also said he’s going to put all of Lively and Baldoni’s texts out there, so, no, this isn’t getting cleared up any time soon.