Critics Choice Awards: Why Chelsea Handler Thanked Blake Lively, Justin Baldoni for the Distraction
Ryan Reynolds‘ presence at the 2025 Critics Choice Awards would have been a marvelous occurrence.
Alas, the actor with many irons in the fire chose to skip the Feb. 7 ceremony at Barker Hangar in Santa Monica, Calif., in favor of being elsewhere.
But he did acknowledge Deadpool & Wolverine‘s shared win for Best Comedy Award with A Real Pain, posting on his Instagram, “Zing! Thanks @criticschoice — whole team @deadpoolmovie is thrilled. But wait a minute. Swipe [to the next slide] Huge congrats to @arealpainfilm.”
He initially reposted the @deadpool movie account to his Instagram Story: “Hughlarious,” read the caption. “Congratulations to the cast and crew of #DeadpoolAndWolverine on their Critics Choice Awards win for Best Comedy! #CriticsChoice.” (See the full list of 2025 Critics Choice Awards winners.)
It would have been a surprise to see Reynolds at the show in any case this year, what with him being so busy buying another soccer team (Club Deportivo Seguros La Equidad in Bogotá, Colombia, with Wrexham partner Rob McElhenney and others), making his 100th Mint Mobile commercial and otherwise going about his daily business. Which, per a Feb. 7 Instagram post, included sharing the stage with Disney CEO Bob Iger and Creative Artists Agency CEO Bryan Lourd at a JP Morgan summit.
“Those boys are SHARP,” Reynolds wrote. “Surprised to discover my mom there. She wanted to see Iger.”
Though his attendance at the awards show would also have been a bit surprising due to his wife Blake Lively‘s ongoing legal battle with Justin Baldoni—which made it into host Chelsea Handler‘s monologue—that couldn’t help but involve Reynolds eventually.
