Blake Lively’s not a regular mom.
The It Ends With Us actress—who shares kids James, 9, Inez, 7, Betty, 4, and Olin, born in 2023, with husband Ryan Reynolds—recently spoke about the unusual birthday cake she baked for her son’s special day.
"My birthday cakes always have a little bit of a sense of humor, for my baby I just did a giant set of t--ts," she shared on BBC Radio 2’s Zoe Ball and Friends show, via a clip shared to Instagram on Aug. 16. “Which I feel will haunt him for life.”
However, Blake stands by the choice, noting that she was simply giving her son one of his favorite things.
“But what do they want at 1?” she quipped. “Like, he can’t declare what he wants, so boobs.”
It’s unclear whether or not this interview took place before the drama surrounding the promotion of the Gossip Girl star’s new film adaptation of Colleen Hoover’s bestselling book.
There has been much speculation about rumored on-set tension between Blake and the film’s director and costar Justin Baldoni after fans noticed that no one on the cast was following Justin on social media and that he was doing press separately from The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants star.
Blake has also received criticism for her seemingly lighthearted approach to promoting a film that centers around a storyline involving domestic violence.
Amid the ongoing conversations, It Ends With Us’ Brandon Sklenar stepped in to defend the women of the film.
“Vilifying the women who put so much of their heart and soul into making this film because they believe so strongly in is message seems counterproductive and detracts from what this film is about,” he wrote on Instagram Aug. 20. “ It is, in fact, the opposite of the point.”
And while warning against focusing on “what may or may not have happened behind the scenes” instead of the intentions behind making the film, he added, “It’s been disheartening to see the amount of negativity being projected online.”
As for Blake’s life as a mom, several of the people closest to the actress recently praised her maternal instincts and abilities.
“She could be on a phone call with, it doesn’t matter, the freaking Pope,” Colleen shared in the September issue of Vogue, “and if her kid walks into the room, she’s gonna give one hundred percent of her attention to her children. As a mom, I just really fell in love with that part of her.”
Meanwhile, Blake’s A Simple Favor director Paul Feig had the highest praise, calling her “one of the best moms I’ve ever seen.”
For more about what Blake and Ryan have said about being parents of four, read on.
"I have seen Frozen with my daughters so, so many times and people don't know this, but if you play Frozen backwards, it's actually a shot for shot remake of The Exorcist," Reynolds joked on The Ellen DeGeneres Show in 2018.
On Dec. 15, 2016, Reynolds and Lively debuted their daughters James and Inez for the first time, at the actor's Hollywood Walk of Fame Ceremony (a common setting for notoriously private celebrities to introduce the world to their kids). During his speech, Reynolds said to his wife, "You make everything better—absolutely everything in my life better. You've given us two of the most incredible children that I could ever hope to have. You've made me the father of my dreams when I thought I only had fun uncle potential."
In August 2016, before the birth of the couple's second daughter, Reynolds told E! News, "There's nothing on earth more grounding than having a baby. It's the best thing that could ever happen to someone."
"It's tough when you get pooped on and barfed on, but having a baby is wonderful," the proud mama told NW Magazine in 2016. "Even when it's tough and I'm exhausted, I think, 'I am so fortunate.'"
During a visit to the Late Show with David Letterman in 2015, Reynolds gushed about his marriage and his daughter, but made sure viewers knew who was more important. "'I would take a bullet for you. I could never love anything as much as I love you.' I would say that to my wife. And the second I looked in that baby's eyes, I knew in that exact moment that if we were ever under attack, I would use my wife as a human shield to protect that baby."
In tradition with his dark sense of humor, Reynolds shared this little parenting joke with his Twitter followers in 2016: "Being a father is the single greatest feeling on earth. Not including those wonderful years I spent without a child, of course."
"I always do the dirty work," Reynolds said on NBC's Today show in 2016. "I'm happy to do the dirty work. So does she, but I'm always, I love getting up in the middle of the night, I'm fine with that, you know, all that stuff."
Fatherhood, he said, has been "amazing."
"I had one of those mornings, rare mornings, where my daughter just didn't want me to leave—and it was only because my wife was asleep," Reynolds said in 2016. "But it was like, you didn't want to go. You just like, it kills you."
"You know, what was really weird was, we were watching the Super Bowl and my daughter saw it and she totally recognized me. There was like 12 of me, which is just like, to her, was like 24 useless boobs," Reynolds said in 2016. "She was so not impressed. She was like, 'Eh, whatever.'"
Becoming A Big Kid
"Damn it's hard letting your infant daughter go somewhere alone for the first time, I was a total mess dropping her off at Burning Man," Ryan joked to his Twitter followers in 2016.
"She's great, man. She's great," the proud papa gushed in 2015 before revealing whether the couple's then-only child James has started speaking. "We're getting a lot of sounds, nothing that sounds like discernible English at this point," he quipped, adding, "I'm mocking her a lot."
"@vancityreynolds Since the day our baby was born, I've felt so strongly in my heart that you were most likely the father," Lively wrote on Instagram in 2015. "#ILoveYouSoMuchItsSilly."
"Having a baby is just living in the constant unexpected," Lively said in 2016. "You never know when you're gonna get crapped on or when you're gonna get a big smile or when that smile immediately turns into hysterics. It might be like living with a drug addict. But you have a baby and you think, 'I can't imagine ever not having a baby,' because they grow up so quickly. I'd be an 80-year-old woman with a baby if I could."
"It's the best," Lively said in 2015. "It's the thing that binds us all—family. We have very unique jobs for a living, but we all are a part of someone's family. It's a nice thing."
"On Father's Day, my daughter smiled at me," Reynolds tweeted in 2015. "It was all the gift I needed as I packed a bag and left for 6 years to write a book on parenting."
"There have been times where I woke up, literally had no idea I had been walking for five minutes," he told E! News while promoting his movie Woman in Gold in 2015.
"But you love it. You wake up in the middle of the night, you got a big stupid smile on your face. I was telling someone else that. Anything else that woke you up every 45 minutes, you'd kill it. But when it's a baby, it's the best thing that ever happened to you."
"One of the most common things in the world is making out, having a couple of drinks, and then doing it, and then having a baby. I was perfectly sober for this one though. I gotta say," Reynolds joked in 2016.
"It's amazing. I just always marvel how common it is and yet how profound it is. And I always laugh because you know celebrities you always cringe when they talk about their kids. Like 'my child is the only one that has ever exited a womb out, ever.'"
"Well, a lot of people have done this, so you always want to temper it with a little of self-effacement. But I love it," Reynolds said in 2015 about then-only child James. "I truly worship that kid. It's terrible. She has me so far wrapped around her finger it's dumb. She says 'Dada' and I will walk through a cement wall to get to her."