A “bravo” from Bethenny.
Bethenny Frankel has praised Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds for showing up to the “SNL” 50th anniversary special on Sunday amid their ongoing legal fight with Lively’s “It Ends With Us” co-star and director, Justin Baldoni.
In the first of two videos posted to her Instagram on Monday, the former “Real Housewives of New York” star, 54, also lauded “SNL” for including the stars in the special, adding that the couple’s decision to poke fun at their battle with Baldoni was “nothing short of genius.”
“Absolutely brilliant of ‘SNL’ to invite and include Ryan Reynolds and Blake Lively to lean into the humor,” Frankel began. “They are the epicenter of pop culture. It is the zeitgeist. Bullseye.”
She continued, “And for Ryan and Blake to participate is nothing short of genius, because the only way to weather a storm is to go straight through it.”
“And as I keep saying, no one knows what actually happened,” the Skinny Girl founder added, referring to Lively and Baldoni’s contradictory claims about the drama that unfolded behind the scenes during the filming of “It Ends With Us.”
“So all of this speculation is a tricky and risky business. But that was very smart. Bravo,” Frankel concluded.
Reynolds nodded to his and Lively’s drama with Baldoni an hour into “SNL 50” during a segment where Tina Fey and Amy Poehler took questions from the star-studded audience in Rockefeller Center’s Studio 8H.
“Ryan Reynolds, how’s it going?” Poehler, 53, asked.
Reynolds then quipped, “Why? What have you heard?”
After facing criticism for her remarks in the comments, Frankel posted another clip, in which she declared she “is tripling down.”
“So many comments on ‘SNL’ and I am tripling down and saying that ‘SNL’ was nothing short of brilliant for having them on last night,” she told viewers. “It’s marketing genius.”
“They are the epicenter. They are the zeitgeist that is popular culture. They often have disruptive people on,” Frankel said of the sketch comedy show.”They talk about disruptive topics They will have both political candidates on. They will have people mocking both political candidates. So from their standpoint, it was nothing short of brilliant.”
Turning to Lively and Reynolds, the reality TV star said, “Whether you like them or not, [it] was smart of Blake and Ryan to go [to ‘SNL 50’].”
Frankel did, however, point out that she was speaking only from a marketing perspective, alluding to the allegations of sexual harassment Lively has leveled against Baldoni and the domestic violence at the center of the story in “It Ends With Us.”
“Now there’s a conversation about it being tone-deaf because of the topic. A very sensitive topic, which was also a complaint at the premiere that she was marketing hair and drinking at a movie premiere about S.A. [sexual assault],” she said, alluding to complaints about Lively marketing a new haircare line when “It Ends With Us” was released and including specialty cocktails from her alcoholics drink company at the premiere.
“So that’s a separate conversation,” Frankel stressed. “But from a marketing standpoint, it was a great idea on everyone’s part.
Referring to social media sleuths, she added, “Not everyone lives in the bowels of Tik-Tok reading every single legal document and knows every single thing that you guys all know.”
“Even Candace Owens would likely agree that ‘SNL’ was brilliant from a marketing standpoint,” Frankel said of the conservative commentator, who has been a vocal critic of Reynolds and Lively.
“She may not like it, and many of you don’t like the ‘ick’ of all of it, but that’s a touching story. From a marketing standpoint, it was smart.”
In December 2024, Lively, 37, sued Baldoni, 41, accusing him of sexual harassment and orchestrating a public smear campaign against her.
Baldoni countersued her and Reynolds, 48, alleging defamation, extortion and more. Both stars have denied the other’s claims through their respective lawyers.
The legal war between Lively and Baldoni shows no sign of cooling down, with mediation seeming unlikely. On Friday, attorneys for both stars told Judge Lewis Liman that “settlement discussions would be premature,” according to a joint letter filed in court and obtained by Fox News Digital.
Lively and Baldoni’s trial is set for March 2026.
