Lorne Michaels can’t stop talking about Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni’s legal battle after Ryan Reynolds made a joke about the situation during the “Saturday Night Live” 50th anniversary special.
On the “Fly on the Wall” podcast Thursday, “SNL” alum Dana Carvey revealed the longtime producer, 80, has repeatedly texted him about the headline-making “It Ends With Us” drama.
After the successful show, Carvey said he messaged Michaels to congratulate him, but “instead of talking about the show, he just goes, ‘Baldoni will now countersue. I think that Lively will probably get a new attorney.’”
The “Wayne’s World” actor, who appeared on the sketch comedy series from 1986 to 1993, then tried to change the topic but got the same response.
“Then I said, ‘But boy Tom Hanks was great and what about that monologue with Steve [Martin]?’ and he goes, ‘I don’t know where Ryan Reynolds is on this but certainly they have deep pockets.’”
A rep for Michaels wasn’t immediately available to Page Six for comment.
During the show, Tina Fey and Amy Poehler asked Reynolds how he was doing, to which he replied, “Great! Why, what have you heard?”
While the “Deadpool” star’s comment proved to be a bit controversial, Carvey said he found it “kind of funny.”
“It’s been in all the newspapers … and when Ryan Reynolds said, ‘What have you heard?’ [He was] basically being tongue-in-cheek about it. So it was a good moment.”
His co-host, David Spade, said he could relate to the couple trying to add a bit of levity into the serious situation.
“They’re like us,” he said. “Whatever is going on you try to make a joke about it.”
However, there has been some contention over who came up with the joke.
Wally Feresten, the longtime cue card guy for “SNL,” claimed Tuesday on the “Fifi, Fev and Nick” podcast that Reynolds played a part in crafting up the idea.
“He had a different line in rehearsal and he pitched that to replace it. That was his idea,” Feresten, aka “Cue Card Wally,” claimed. “We wouldn’t want to do anything too controversial unless they were in on it.”
However, several sources shot down Feresten’s version of events.
“The opening joke was pitched by ‘SNL’ and never changed,” an insider told us. “The follow-up joke was rewritten in rehearsal.”
A rep for NBC also said his claims were “not true,” which was dittoed by an “SNL” source who said, “Wally is not part of the writing process or part of any of those decisions.”
Lively and Reynolds’ appearance at the star-studded show marked their first joint red carpet since December when the “Gossip Girl” filed a sexual harassment lawsuit against Baldoni.
She also accused the director of orchestrating a smear campaign against her.
However, the “Jane the Virgin” star vehemently denied her accusations and responded with his own $400 million defamation and extortion lawsuit against Lively and Reynolds.
Read the full article here