We all know the vibe. Ryan Reynolds and Blake Lively are basically the internet's favorite couple. They troll each other on Instagram, look impossibly good on red carpets, and seem to have that rare, genuine Hollywood marriage. It’s easy to think they’ve been together forever. But if you’ve ever scrolled deep into a Wikipedia hole or seen a grainy photo from 2008, you might have wondered: was Ryan Reynolds married before he became one half of the world's most charming power couple?
The answer is yes. Honestly, he wasn't just married; he was part of one of the most low-profile, high-intensity A-list marriages of the 2000s. Before the Wrexham AFC ownership and the Deadpool global domination, Reynolds had a whole other life.
The Marvel Marriage: Ryan Reynolds and Scarlett Johansson
It sounds like a fan-fiction fever dream now, but Black Widow and Deadpool were actually husband and wife.
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In 2007, Reynolds started dating Scarlett Johansson. This was right after he ended a very public, very Canadian engagement to singer Alanis Morissette. By May 2008, they announced they were engaged. By September of that same year, they were married in a quiet, remote wilderness resort outside Tofino, British Columbia.
They were incredibly private. Like, "no photos together on the red carpet" private. In an era where paparazzi were hunting every celebrity couple, these two managed to keep their marriage almost entirely under wraps. But it didn't last. By December 2010, they released a joint statement saying they were ending things.
"We entered our relationship with love and it’s with love and kindness we leave it," they said.
Classic celeb breakup talk, right? But what actually happened?
Years later, Scarlett hinted at the struggles of two rising stars being in the same house. She mentioned to Cosmopolitan that the logistics of being with another actor are "challenging." There’s a competitive element that can creep in when both people's careers are moving at the same speed. Or, perhaps more painfully, when one is moving faster than the other. Back then, Scarlett was arguably the bigger star, and Ryan was still finding his footing as a leading man.
The Breakup Aftermath
When the divorce was finalized in 2011, Ryan was reportedly devastated. He even told Details magazine at the time that he didn't think he’d ever want to get married again. He described the experience as a "crisis" but admitted that such moments can wake you up. Clearly, his "never again" stance didn't stick once he met a certain Gossip Girl star on the set of Green Lantern.
The Engagement Everyone Forgets: Alanis Morissette
While the question "was Ryan Reynolds married before" usually leads people to Scarlett, there’s an even more dramatic chapter right before her.
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Ryan and Alanis Morissette were the Canadian "it" couple of the early 2000s. They met at Drew Barrymore’s birthday party in 2002. They were together for five years and engaged for nearly three of them.
Alanis used to call their connection a "trampoline kind of love." It was passionate, intense, and very public. They were constantly seen together at awards shows, looking genuinely obsessed with each other. But they never made it down the aisle. They split in 2007, and if you want to know how Alanis felt about it, just listen to her 2008 album Flavors of Entanglement. The song "Torch" is a literal grief-stricken roadmap of their breakup.
Why We Forget the Past Relationships
It’s weirdly easy to forget Ryan was ever with anyone but Blake. Why is that?
- The Reynolds/Lively Brand: Their public personas are so perfectly intertwined now. They don’t just have a marriage; they have a shared comedic voice.
- Scarlett’s Privacy: Because she and Ryan almost never photographed together or talked about each other, there’s very little "visual proof" in our collective memory.
- The "Pre-Deadpool" Era: Ryan’s career underwent a massive shift. The "old" Ryan was a romantic lead in movies like The Proposal. The "new" Ryan is a mogul. We tend to bucket his personal life into those career phases.
What You Can Take Away From Ryan’s History
Looking back at Ryan's dating history isn't just about celebrity gossip. It actually offers a pretty human look at how people grow.
- Timing is everything. Ryan and Scarlett were young (she was only 23 when they married). Sometimes you're just not ready for the "hunker down" work of a marriage.
- Compatibility evolves. What Alanis called "passionate incompatibility" might be fun in your 20s, but most people eventually look for the "best friend" vibe he clearly found with Blake.
- Privacy vs. Public Image. You can see the shift in how Ryan handles his personal life. With Scarlett, it was total lockdown. With Blake, it’s controlled, humorous transparency. One seems to work much better for his mental health.
If you’re curious about how other stars managed their early marriages before finding "the one," you might want to look into the early 2000s history of stars like Angelina Jolie or even Tom Cruise—the patterns are surprisingly similar.
Next Steps for You: If you want to dive deeper into how celebrity marriages affect career trajectories, you could research the "Oscar Curse" or look into how Scarlett Johansson’s own perspective on marriage changed in her subsequent relationships with Romain Dauriac and Colin Jost.