How Blake Lively played ‘very serious’ prank on her ex-boyfriend and Gossip Girl co-star Penn Badgley that made him question who his father was

Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds are regarded as one of Hollywood’s most rock solid couples.

The stars have four children together and Mr Reynolds has been stoic and steadfast in his support for his wife in the wake of her huge legal battle with Justin Baldoni.

The couple have expressed their intention to ask a federal court to drop a lawsuit filed earlier this month by her It Ends with Us director Mr Baldoni.

In response Mr Baldoni’s combative lawyer Bryan Freedman has launched a website containing 168 pages of emails, text messages and WhatsApps, mostly between his client and Blake Lively.

Before Blake and Ryan got together, she had a string of relationships with leading men including a 2011 fling with Leonardo DiCaprio and she dated Gossip Girl co-star Penn Badgley for three years before that.

Internet sleuths have unearthed an extraordinary insight into her relationship with Penn, who played Dan Humphrey in the teen drama that made Blake’s name. 

Another intriguing twist in the saga emerged last week: Penn has struck up a ‘bromance’ with Blake and Ryan’s foe Justin Baldoni.

Penn and Blake had been much in love – but despite not liking practical jokes, he revealed how his then partner had played a ‘remarkable prank’ on him that shook his world and questioned who his father was. He said she was ‘very serious’ about them’.

They split in 2010 and kept it secret from the show’s makers until after the season two finale because they ‘didn’t want their personal drama to relate to the show’, one insider said.

Blake married Ryan Reynolds in 2012 and Penn married Domino Kirke in 2017. Mr Badgley has kept quiet about his relationship with Ms Lively and their break-up.

But in a little known podcast he did reveal that she played an incredible prank on him when they were together – to convince him that his father was not who he thought it was.

Blake even roped in his mother Lynne to convince him that he was the offspring of Aerosmith singer Steven Tyler. 

Blake Lively and Penn Badgley were a couple for three years

They met on the set of Gossip Girl in 2007 but split in 2010

Penn Badgley grabs lunch with his father Duff in Los Angeles

Blake Lively at the It Ends With Us premiere in New York with husband Ryan Reynolds last year

The actress, 37, sued her It Ends With Us co-star and director Justin Baldoni, 40 alleging sexual harassment and fostering a toxic work environment on the set. He has staunchly denied the allegations 

Blake made Penn believe that Steve Tyler was his dad instead of journalist, carpenter and green activist Duff Badgley after roping in his mum

During an episode of his Podcrushed podcast, which emerged online, he said he disliked pranks but Blake Lively was ‘actually very serious about them’.

She roped in his mother Lynne Badgley and ‘got many people’ involved in it.

Speaking about it last year he said: ‘I get an email, just like: “There’s this press item we’re trying to kill but just so you know, somebody thinks, or Steven Tyler thinks, he’s your dad”,’ he said

‘And I didn’t even think about it for a moment because who would in their right mind would think that that’s true?’

In the coming days a publicist contacted him again and said they also believed the rumour.

He said: ‘I’m just like: “How could Steven Tyler believe this? Like, there’s no way. You have to be kidding. Steven Tyler of Aerosmith thinks that I’m his?”,’ he said.

Penn confided in Blake Lively who then said that he should call his mother to ask.

But describing the call to his mother he said: ‘She’s upset, and I’m like: “Mom, why are you upset?”. And then she takes a pause, that is like the pause that sold me, and she goes: “Why do you think we moved out of Maryland?”.

His parents Duff and Lynne divorced when he was young and he very briefly fell for it. 

‘And I’m telling you, for something like five to seven seconds, which is a long time, I was speechless, and my world was rearranging. I was like: “Are you f***ing kidding me? I am Steven Tyler’s son”?’, Penn said previously.

But it was Blake who gave the game away – by laughing.

‘I looked at her and she probably at that point couldn’t keep a straight face. And I’m like: “Ugh it’s April Fools”. I was impressed. I was like: “Wow. You really put in a lot of work”, and it worked. For it to work at all, that’s hard.’

One actor who worked with Lively said this week that  Blake was down after a fling with Leonardo DiCaprio ended in 2011 and she failed to get the part she wanted in The Great Gatsby.

But then Ryan Reynolds courted her and was described as bowing at her feet. 

Lively and Reynolds famously tied the knot on September 9, 2012 during an intimate ceremony attended by several celebrity pals at Boone Hall Plantation & Gardens in South Carolina; the former plantation pictured in 2004

The couple’s ceremony was held in a ‘rustic barn’ and the reception was held in a white tent at the plantation, while Lively’s good friend, British singer Florence Welch serenaded the newlyweds with three songs; Lively and Reynolds seen in 2017

A TV chef who claims she worked with Blake Lively has claimed she is ‘horrendous’ on set

Amid their ugly court battle with It Ends With Us star Justin Baldoni, Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds’ relationship is being put under the microscope.

The Hollywood couple — who have a combined net worth of $380million — are facing renewed backlash over their controversial 2012 plantation wedding.

Lively and Reynolds famously tied the knot on September 9, 2012 during an intimate ceremony attended by several celebrity pals at Boone Hall Plantation & Gardens in South Carolina.

The stunning backdrop to the couple’s nuptials has a dark history of slavery, with ‘preserved’ slave cabins and fields of cotton serving as a constant reminder of the horrors that once took place there.

Lively and Reynolds were widely criticized for seemingly glamorizing the former plantation where Black slaves suffered and died. 

Years later, the Deadpool actor branded the wedding ‘a giant f***ing mistake’ in a 2020 interview.

The ‘shame’ felt by the couple was so strong that Reynolds and Lively decided to wed for a second time at their New York home.

They’ve also gone on to donate millions to the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund and have been vocal about their support of the Black Lives Matter movement.

This week MailOnline revealed how an actress turned TV chef claimed that Blake Lively was ‘horrendous’ to work with and accused her of throwing Justin Baldoni ‘under the bus’ because she is ‘used to being adored’.

Rossella Rago, 37, host of the popular YouTube Italian food series Cooking with Nonna, even accused the star, also 37, of flatulence between takes when she was an extra on Gossip Girl.

‘She would burp and fart in the middle of set – and act like we were lucky to be smelling her farts’, she said in a TikTok post, adding: ‘She was very unpleasant to work with. I just don’t know how else to say it’. 

Rossella, who has also written a series of cookery books, claims that Blake’s husband Ryan Reynolds would ‘bow down at her feet’ when they began dating after her brief fling with Leonardo DiCaprio in 2011.

‘She is used to being adored and when she is not, s**t gets real, and Baldoni has found out how real it gets’, she said.

Ms Lively has found herself at the centre of a storm after she tried to incinerate the reputation and career of Justin Baldoni, her co-star in hit film It Ends With Us.

She filed a civil complaint just before Christmas accusing him of sexual harassment on set, leading to a media storm which has engulfed her – and her husband Ryan Reynolds.

Ms Rago says that she worked as an extra in six series of Gossip Girl, where Blake played Serena van der Woodsen in the teen drama. 

‘I was a stand-in on movies and TV shows for 15 years and I worked on the show [Gossip Girl] on and off for all six seasons.

‘I’m going to attest that Blake Lively is horrendous. I’m sorry to burst your bubble. She was a nepo baby and when she was 19 and the whole world was blowing smoke up her a**. It is really hard to keep your head when that happens.’

She went on: ‘I’m thinking she thinks that she has the right to behave exactly as she wants. And how dare we make a fuss? She couldn’t handle that people didn’t frigging like her and she was looking like an a**hole. 

‘She has thrown people under the bus. This guy [Justin Baldoni] has a wife and family. And made out these benign interactions are assault when I’ve seen the footage and I think just ‘go home’.’

While filming Gossip Girl, Rossella claimed that Blake would rarely speak to extras via a director who told them to be quiet or not to move, on her behalf.

On one occasion Ms Rago said she gave Blake some script notes in a scene.

‘When she tried to be nice… she really has to force herself because I was a normal person’, she said, adding that Ms Lively would say ‘thank you’ in the most OTT way.

Rossella claims Blake had come back to the set of Gossip Girl after splitting with Leonardo DiCaprio, and that he ‘had a puss on her face’ and ‘she was in a very bad mood and it was like: do not talk to her’.

Blake and Leo dated briefly in 2011 and were seen together at the Cannes Film Festival and on dates in Italy, New York, and Australia.

She had auditioned for the role of Daisy Buchanan in The Great Gatsby but the role went to Carey Mulligan.

But soon afterwards Ryan Reynolds fell in love with her. The couple married in 2012 and have two children.

‘Ryan started coming around. We all deserve a man like that, to bow down in front of you. That was cute. That’s the kind of person she is’.

Unedited footage from the filming of It Ends With Us released by Justin Baldoni’s legal team last week, showing the actor and Lively in a scene during which she claims she was sexually harrassed

Baldoni and Lively are pictured on the set in January 2024

Baldoni alleges that that Lively and Reynolds used their ‘power and influence’ against him, in an attempt at ‘destroying Baldoni’s career and personal life’ 

In the run-up to the movie’s August 9 release, rumours began swirling of a rift between Lively and Baldoni, who are pictured in the movie. They never appeared together on the red carpet or in interviews

Lively and Reynolds, 48, might have been expected to go to the Golden Globes on January 7 as his film Deadpool & Wolverine was up for an award. 

But they didn’t attend and are expected to dodge Oscars night on March 2, too.

More claims about Ryan Reynolds resurfaced on social media in recent days, as the star is caught up in an ugly lawsuit between his wife and Justin Baldoni.

Comedian TJ Miller, 43, claimed Reynolds, 48, was ‘horrifically mean’ to him on set and ‘insecure’ in a 2022 The Adam Corolla Show podcast interview that has now gone viral again.

‘As the character, he was, like, horrifically mean to me,’ Miller claimed, before sharing an alleged incident from the filming of the second film. 

‘But to me. As if I’m Weasel.’

The Big Hero 6 star continued, ‘He was like, ‘You know what’s great about you, Weasel? You’re not the star, but you do just enough exposition that it’s funny and then we can leave and get back to the real movie.”

Miller said he ‘kind of listened and thought it was weird’ before walking away after the director called cut.

The Yogi Bear actor alluded to Reynolds possibly being ‘insecure’ for some reason, though he didn’t seem exactly sure why.

The twists and turns of this bitter Hollywood feud have become steadily more sensational – and more damaging for Lively – as January has unfolded.

The film at the heart of the feud, based on the 2016 bestseller by Colleen Hoover, was released in August and was a box office hit. It follows Lily Bloom, a florist played by Lively, who falls in love with a charming but abusive neurosurgeon played by Baldoni, who also directed the movie.

Initial rumours of a fall-out between the co-stars surfaced over the summer after they appeared to avoid each other during the movie’s promotional tour and have since blown up into a full-scale war after Lively’s lawsuit dropped on December 23.

This included claims that Baldoni, 41, entered Lively’s trailer while she was topless, showed her pornographic pictures and a graphic video of his wife giving birth, repeatedly discussed his ‘porn addiction’, described his own genitalia and even bit and sucked on Lively’s lips during an improvised kissing scene for which Baldoni insisted on doing multiple takes.

In response last week, Justin Baldoni’s team released a video of unedited footage of him and Lively doing three takes of one scene of their characters flirting in a bar, which had given rise to Lively’s accusations of sexual harassment.

Both sides say the video vindicates their account, but most people agree what is shown appears to fall a long way short of the ‘predatory’ behaviour of which Lively complained.

Meanwhile Baldoni’s contention – that Lively ‘stole’ the film from him, erased his credit, banished him to the basement on the night of the premiere as she wouldn’t allow him to be in the same room as her and cooked up a story about creepy behaviour to cover up what she had done – is being widely believed on social media. 

Multiple sources connected with the lawsuit confirm that Baldoni’s team are building a full website on the case which will be open to the public.

When it goes live it will include numerous snippets of unedited footage from the film, including anything which ‘speaks to’ Lively’s original complaint about her co-star. As Baldoni’s lawyer Bryan Freedman puts it: ‘We have all the receipts – and more.’

This might extend to footage of one scene which Lively has complained about where her character is giving birth. 

She said that she was ‘pressured’ into simulating ‘full nudity’; Baldoni’s team say that she was covered by a prosthetic bump and a hospital gown.

The website will also include full unedited WhatsApp, text and email exchanges between Lively and Baldoni, such as a message where she invites him to come and run through lines in her trailer, saying she was ‘pumping’ – expressing breast milk.

This could cast doubt on her assertion Baldoni had entered her trailer on multiple occasions while she was breast-feeding, causing her distress.

The twists and turns of this bitter Hollywood feud have become steadily more sensational – and more damaging for Lively, here at a gala screening in London in August

The question of evidence, and if it has been manipulated, is at the heart of the first legal action in this feud and led to The New York Times printing a 4,000-word article titled ‘Inside a Hollywood Smear Machine’ within a few hours of the Lively lawsuit being filed.

The article, which is now subject to a libel complaint from Baldoni’s team, alleged that his PRs Melissa Nathan and Jen Abel conspired to create a global smear campaign against Lively at the time of the film’s premiere, when the actress was criticised for being tone deaf in using a movie about domestic violence to promote her alcohol brands and for telling viewers to ‘grab your florals’ to watch it.

It cited one text message from his publicist Nathan which read: ‘We can bury anyone.’ Now it seems the initiative has swung back to the Baldoni camp.

Lively’s team are insisting they want to go to court and no discussions over a settlement have been opened. 

They say: ‘While they [Baldoni’s team] are focused on misleading media narratives, we are focused on the legal process. We are continuing our efforts to require Mr Baldoni and his associates to answer in court, under oath, rather than through manufactured media stunts.’

Baldoni’s lawyer responds: ‘Prior to filing her lawsuit in court, Ms Lively went to The New York Times in an effort to publicly destroy Justin Baldoni. When Mr Baldoni exercises his right to publicly defend himself by putting forth actual facts and evidence, for Ms Lively and team this instantly becomes morally and ethically wrong.

‘Ms Lively wants very different standards to apply to her but fortunately, truth and authenticity apply to everyone and can never be wrong. Looking at the video and the evidence to come, I can understand why Ms Lively would now not want this to play out in public.’