An iconic dedication! Ryan Reynolds discussed what it felt like to have friend Taylor Swift use the names of his daughters in her songs.
“The names are the names of our kids. We trust her implicitly. She’s very sensitive to any of that stuff. And obviously the song has nothing to do with our kids other than our kids’ names. But I mean, what an honor,” Reynolds, 44, said during a SiriusXM Town Hall special with Jess Cagle on Thursday, August 5.
The actor and wife Blake Lively, who tied the knot in 2012, still continue to appreciate Swift, 31, offering their children such a unique tribute.
“We thought it was pretty damn amazing. We still do. You know, I still walk down the street and shake my head thinking ‘I can’t believe that happened,'” the Deadpool star added.
Reynolds also shared how they decided to tell their daughters the cool news.
“We surprised them with it,” he joked. “They didn’t know. They had no idea. We don’t tell them anything, we find they’re most compliant if you offer them no access to outside information.”
Fans originally started to wonder if the 11-time Grammy winner revealed the names of Lively, 33, and Reynolds’ oldest daughters, James, 5, and Inez, 3, during the release of her album Folklore in July 2020. She previously included James’ voice in her 2017 track, “Gorgeous.”
“You heard the rumors from Inez / You can’t believe a word she says,” the musician sang in the chorus of the “Betty” track. “I was walking home on broken cobblestones / Just thinking of you when she pulled up like / A figment of my worst intentions / She said ‘James, get in, let’s drive.’”
The hit song offered fans an even bigger clue when some questioned whether that was the name of Lively and Reynolds’ third little girl, who was born in 2019. Swift proudly confirmed the theory one month later.
“I named all the characters in this story after my friends’ kids, and I hope you like it!” the songwriter said in a radio interview in August 2020.
Swift also offered more of an explanation at the inspiration behind the song.
“He lost the love of his love, basically, and doesn’t understand how to get it back. I think we all have these situations in our lives where we learn to really, really give a heartfelt apology for the first time,” she noted at the time. “Everyone makes mistakes, everybody really messes up sometimes. This is a song that I wrote from the perspective of a 17-year-old boy. And I’ve always loved that in music you can kind of slip into different identifies and you can sing from other people’s perspectives, and that’s what I did in this one.”
