Before Blake, There Was Scarlett — Why Did Ryan Reynolds Get Divorced?

Many moons ago, before Ryan Reynolds was part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe as the hilariously unhinged Deadpool, he was actually part of the DC universe as the title character in 2011's Green Lantern. It was on this DC film set where he met and fell in love with the woman who would become his second wife, and the mother to his children: actress Blake Lively.

But before Blake, Ryan was married to another Marvel badass: Black Widow herself, Scarlett Johansson.

So what happened between Ryan and Scarlett that doomed their relationship before they could reach their Marvel heights together?

Here's what we know about their split.

Ryan was first romantically linked to Scarlett in 2007, following his split from then-fiancé Alanis Morisette (yes, that's right, the Alanis Morissette). Ryan and Scarlett got engaged in May 2008 and were married by that September. But by December 2010, the two had announced their separation.

So why did the golden couple split? Well, if you were to ask Scarlett, she might say it had something to do with the competitive nature of show business.

"The logistics of being with another actor are challenging," she told Cosmopolitan back in 2016. "There has to be a real understanding of how you share your time, especially when two people’s careers are going at the same rate. Or even if one person is more successful than the other, that also proves challenging. There may be a competitive thing."

She might also say it had something to do with being young at the time, and perhaps not really knowing what she was getting into by tying the knot.

"I mean, the first time I got married I was 23 years old," Scarlet told Vanity Fair in 2019. "I didn’t really have an understanding of marriage. Maybe I kind of romanticized it, I think, in a way."

Or perhaps it was because their busy schedules prevented them from spending enough time together during their short-lived union.

"We have no time for dates. We work and then go home and — I, anyway — just stare at the wall for a few hours before I go to sleep … Like in any profession, it's difficult," Scarlett admitted to Time Out New York in 2009 (per Yahoo). “You want to make sure you have time to invest in your family. It's a challenge, but it's worth it."

As for Ryan, he told Details magazine (per Today) in 2011 that "[t]here was no story and no scandal, so the narrative was just created for me." He also maintained that "the media was not invited to my marriage, and they're definitely not invited into the divorce."

"Anyone who gets divorced goes through a lot of pain, but you come out of it," he added. "I'm not out of it yet. At all. But I sense that as I do come through it, there's optimism. How can there not be?"

It's possible the "scandal" he was referring to were rumors that he had gotten together with Blake on the set of Green Lantern in 2010 while he was still with Scarlett, but there's never been any evidence that this was true.

Whatever may have happened between Ryan and Scarlett, they have both moved on (Scarlett was married to French journalist Romain Dauriac from 2014 to 2017 and shares a daughter with him; today she is married to Colin Jost and they share a son), and there appears to be no bad blood. Scarlett even referred to Ryan as a "good guy" when his name came up during her interview on the Goop podcast in April 2023. Sounds like it just wasn't meant to be, and that's OK!