Ryan Reynolds accused of bullying after supposedly basing an obnoxious ‘Deadpool & Wolverine’ character off of Justin Baldoni

Deadpool star Ryan Reynolds has earned the ire of a handful of fans after a few have noticed that Nicepool from Deadpool & Wolverine said and did things in the movie that, in the context of the Justin Baldoni and Blake Lively drama, seemed to suggest the character is based on Baldoni.

It Ends with Us saw a lot of on-set drama between its two stars, and that drama will potentially be spilling out into a courtroom, with both actors now suing each other. Blake has accused her co-star of sexual harassment, claiming that he behaved inappropriately on set and that he tried to run a smear campaign against her. Meanwhile, Justin has fired back, refuting Lively’s claims and instead claiming she was the one engaging in a smear campaign against him.

Right now the waters are muddy; it’s difficult to know who’s telling the truth and who’s not. Many are supportive of Blake, but others believe Justin’s account of what happened. Regardless, all we know for sure is that things quickly became hostile while on set and they remained that way throughout the movie’s premiere and into today. We also know Lively even brought her husband, Reynolds, on set at one point — apparently the meeting between Baldoni and Reynolds didn’t go well, with the Green Lantern star apparently berating Baldoni and leaving him traumatized.

Ryan Reynolds and Blake Lively are accused of bullying

In his lawsuit, Baldoni claims the pair were “bullying” him during the production of the movie. He refuted many of Lively’s other claims and provided text messages that back up his side of the story. His side of the story has won some audiences over, with fans defending him online. Many have even started digging and think they’ve found some solid evidence that Reynolds and Lively were indeed bullying Baldoni. That evidence, of course, is the character Nicepool.

Fans noticed that everything about Nicepool — from the way he looked, to the things he said —allude to Baldoni. One fan on X pointed out that the character looked almost identical to Baldoni from 2023, with his long curly hair and man bun. It’s hard to deny there are some similarities there. 

But that’s not all — Nicepool also comments on Ladypool’s post-pregnancy body, (Baldoni allegedly fat-shamed Lively) and, as we all know, Ladypool was played by Lively.

Over on TikTok, people began questioning the scale of the bullying — if Nicepool really was based on Baldoni then this would suggest the bullying goes way beyond social media.

Another TikToker, @theredcoquette, mentioned deleted scenes, which she claims were blatant jabs at Justin.

Of course it gets worse when you factor in that Nicepool is brutally killed off by Ladypool, and he’s the only version of Deadpool without regenerative powers.

Deadpool & Wolverine’s filming schedule makes this theory unlikely

Now, can we say conclusively that Ryan Reynolds meant this character to be a jab at Justin Baldoni? No we can’t. While the striking similarity might seem like proof enough, it would have been unlikely that Reynolds would have been able to add an entirely new character into the film as all this was happening. 

Both movies were filmed around the same time, with both starting mid-2023 before pausing production during the strikes. Deadpool & Wolverine resumed filming in November 2023 and finished in January 2024. Meanwhile, It Ends with Us resumed filming in January 2024. According to CBR.com, Lively’s lawsuit mentions a meeting prior to the resume of filming, which would have been close to the time Deadpool & Wolverine was wrapping up. It’s not impossible that Ryan added Nicepool to troll Baldoni, and then ad-libbed the character’s lines and likeness to Baldoni, but it’s very unlikely.