Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds obviously love family life. After all, the pair never shy away from gushing — and joking — over parenthood.
However, when it comes to actually revealing information about any of their four kids, the couple stay mostly mum. At the premiere of “Deadpool & Wolverine” on July 22, however, Reynolds appeared to share the name of his youngest child with Lively — Olin.
Previously, TODAY’s Savannah Guthrie and Hoda Kotb even attempted to give a hint at baby No. 4’s name while Reynolds made an appearance on May 13.
Earlier in July, Lively joked that her husband was “trying to get me pregnant again” after he posted a video of him holding co-star “Dogpool,” Peggy.
While talking to E! News ahead of the release of “Deadpool & Wolverine,” Reynolds joked that he wouldn’t mind expanding their family.
“The more the merrier,” Reynolds joked alongside co-star Hugh Jackman. “As many as possible. As many little heartbeats as possible, just running around, wrecking stuff in the house. I love it. Let’s have more!”
The actor also teased that his four children preferred his longtime pal over him, and are obsessed with one of Jackman’s movies.
“My kids prefer everything Hugh to me,” he said, while Jackman quipped, “Mainly just as a parent.”
Reynolds added that his children have “watched ‘The Greatest Showman’ more than the editor for ‘The Greatest Showman.’ And sometimes I come home, and this guy’s actually acting it out with them and that’s kind of amazing.”
While he is willing to share some insight into his family life, the “It Ends With Us” star and the “Deadpool” actor value their children’s privacy so much that few photos of the kids have ever been made public (outside of Reynolds’ 2016 Hollywood Walk of Fame ceremony). And more than a year after welcoming their most recent little one into the world, baby No. 4 remains a mystery.
Their pal Taylor Swift might have let slip a detail about the kids on July 25 when she referred to Reynolds as her “godkids’ sperm donor” in a funny message about his film “Deadpool & Wolverine.” Godmother Taylor, anyone?
Still, Lively and Reynolds have said just enough over the years to piece together a mini-family biography for curious fans. Read on to learn all we know about their children: James, Inez, Betty and the newest addition to their party of six.
Meet James
The “Green Lantern” co-stars wed in 2012, and just months after their second anniversary, they started their family with the arrival of daughter James, whose name was confirmed right here on TODAY.
“You did say a few months ago, before she was born, that you were going to name her Excalibur Anaconda Reynolds,” anchor Willie Geist mentioned during a March 2015 interview with Reynolds. “So can we call her Anna at least — short for Anaconda?”
“That is not the child’s name!” Reynolds shot back. “It’s Butternut Summersquash.”
Eventually, Dad gave the jokes a rest and admitted, “It’s James.”
One didn’t have to look far up the family tree to see where inspiration for her name came from.
She was named in honor of her father’s father.
“It felt right,” Reynolds told Mr. Porter in 2018 of the gesture. He added, “My father died soon after my daughter was born, but he got to see her, which makes me happy.”
Though she’s not exactly famous like her folks, James can officially call herself an entertainer, too, thanks to an early recording gig.
At just 2 years old, James’ voice was featured on a song called “Gorgeous,” from Swift.
Meet Inez
Nearly two years after James was born, she got a little sister. In September 2016, Inez joined the family, and Reynolds didn’t wait long to reveal to his fans and followers that he and Lively had another girl at home.
“The mobile above my daughter’s crib is just a whole bunch of NuvaRings,” he tweeted the following month. “So she remembers how lucky she is.”
As for her name, Inez was first widely rumored to be spelled “Ines.”
“I had a new baby, Inez, with a ‘z,’ even though everyone says it’s with an ‘s,’” Lively told People in 2018. “I don’t know why, please tell Wikipedia.”
When she was 1 year old, Inez spent some time on the set of “Deadpool 2.” According to Reynolds, the visits didn’t go well.
“I’d leave the house in the morning, and I’d be Dad,” he recalled during a chat on Entertainment Weekly Radio. “Then by lunch, it looked like I’d fell asleep on a stove. My 1-year-old daughter would just sob, I mean, for hours after seeing me. It’s torture because you can’t rip it off in the moment and be like, ‘No, no, no! See I’m under here,’ and undo four hours of prosthetic makeup work.”
Meet Betty
In October 2019, Lively and Reynolds expanded their family with the arrival of yet another daughter, and though it took a while before they went public with her name — a family tradition by that point — they were quick to share a photo of the little one.
Sort of.
In a social media post highlighting an election in Canada set for October that same year, Reynolds included a photo of him and his wife standing in the woods, smiling as they both cuddled an infant between them. The baby’s face, however, wasn’t visible. Instead, it was edited out and substituted with a smiley drawing.
That blurry bundle of joy turned out to be named Betty, a fact first teased by unofficial Auntie Swift. “Betty” was also the name of a track on Swift’s 2020 album, “Folklore.” Fans figured out the connection after noticing the only other names mentioned in the song were James and Inez.
Betty’s parents were all too happy with the honor.
“I mean, the names are the names of our kids, but we trust her implicitly, and she’s very sensitive to any of that stuff,” Reynolds said of Swift during a SiriusXM Town Hall. “And obviously, the song has nothing to do with our kids other than our kids’ names.”
Meet Olin
Lively revealed her fourth pregnancy in September 2022, both by debuting her baby bump in a red-carpet appearance at the 10th annual Forbes Power Women’s Summit and in a set of photos she shared to Instagram days later.
“Here are photos of me pregnant in real life so the 11 guys waiting outside my home for a 🦄 sighting will leave me alone,” an excerpt from the post’s caption read. “You freak me and my kids out.”
Maybe it was all that unwanted attention that led Lively and Reynolds to keep details about their fourth baby to themselves. The child was born in February 2023.
During a May 13 appearance on TODAY, Savannah asked if the name of his youngest child appeared on Swift’s “The Tortured Poets Department.”
The actor dodged the question with a witty response, saying, “We always wait for Taylor to tell us what the child’s name will be. “We’ll say this. We’re still waiting, so Taylor, let’s maybe start.”
During that same interview, Reynolds also touched on parenting his four children while Lively was away.
“You know, single dad. I’m a Reba McEntire song. Single dad, doing it all. Yeah, just doing it for them, right?” he said, before jokingly adding, “(I) took them all to the park. Told them Mommy left when they were young. Surprisingly, you get a lot of action that way.”
The comedy continued as he had Hoda and Savannah laughing, adding, “No, we had a good time. No one died, which was nice.”
On July 22 at the premiere of Reynolds’ movie “Deadpool & Wolverine,” Reynolds appeared to reveal the name of his and Lively’s fourth child.
“I want to thank my kids, James, Inez, Betty, Olin, who are here,” he said. “I hope that, if I’m lucky, this moment will be the most traumatic thing — that is, the contents of this movie — that happens in your wondrous life.”