Blake Lively & Ryan Reynolds Try To Make Their Marriage Look Unbothered & Fail Miserably

It wasn't quite stress eating, but Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds certainly found a dessert distraction to try and make their lives look perfectly normal amidst their ongoing legal battles and damage to their public image. Before we get to the PR distraction, here is a quick reminder that Lively and Reynolds are trapped in the middle of a seemingly endless legal battle with Justin Baldoni, the director and co-star opposite Lively in "It Ends With Us." However, a court date has been set for March 9, 2026, to (potentially) put an end to all the back and forth. In the meantime, Lively and Reynolds have taken to social media to heed their PR team's apparent strategy of convincing the public that everything is totally, absolutely fine. And to continue to try and do that — this time, they chose donuts.

Lively took to Instagram to post stories of her working at Rise Doughnut in Wilton, Connecticut, where she smiled and filled bourbon rhubarb cream cheese donuts to the sounds of "Everybody's Working For The Weekend." Her other stories joked about her Instagram account now being a "donut stan account" and revealed pictures that made her look like a celeb of the people as she prepped ingredients by night and took orders from customers by day. Reynolds also did his PR due diligence and reposted his wife's story with the caption "Oh my god this place has the GOODS" along with a photo of the owner. And while a blissful donut shop may be Lively's "happy place" (via TMZ), the social media dump of unbothered positivity felt like another candy-coated distraction from the ugly he-said, she-said of the Lively-Baldoni-Reynolds triangle of accusations.

No one was more quick to point out the cloying PR move (straight out of Amber Heard's playbook) than eagle-eyed fans online, who made their harsh disapproval known. One user on X, formerly Twitter, sniffed out the setup, posting, "Blake and Ryan are so private, let's you know that the only reason they're coming out and interacting with the public is because they have an agenda. I find it all to be extremely entertaining." As for why sentiment seems to have shifted and Lively and Reynolds may have felt the need to appear more down to earth, one user posted, "Not sure new branding would help. This isn't just redo and forget. She tried to ruin an innocent man's career, livelihood, and family for her own greed and praise. She's utterly vile."

The pro-Justin Baldoni opinion could stem from news reported by People in which Baldoni's lawyer claimed that he and fellow "It Ends With Us" producers were "devastated financially and emotionally," with the lawyer also noting that Lively was the one who started the drama, adding that, "in these kinds of cases, once someone says something it becomes fact: There's no way to fight against it." Granted, some shady details have come out about Baldoni, too. As for Lively and Reynolds, though they may appear to be just dandy making donuts, a source told Us Weekly that "Blake is very stressed, upset, and just wants all of this to be done." However, Reynolds (whose own career may be suffering some collateral damage) was "more confident that the truth will prevail in court." The source also said that Reynolds "has been consoling" Lively –- which makes for quite a different picture than her pleasant weekend at the donut shop.