Ryan Reynolds' Feud With Hugh Jackman Explained

Surely many of us have had a friend that's so close, we can mock each other all day and there's no trouble at all. In fact, it makes the relationship closer. Everything is fair game, everything is funny, and everything is done in love. But when actors Hugh Jackman and Ryan Reynolds first took to the internet in the 2000s and started doing exactly that — fake trash talking and poking fun — some folks were confused. Some folks still are. And in 2024, the duo's schoolyard antics and real-world friendship culminated in the gloriously vulgar and violent "Deadpool & Wolverine," a film that highlights the actors' actual relationship almost more than anything else. Spoiler alert: "Found families win the day" is more or less the film's final theme.

But back to the fraudulent frenemies. The A-listers' mutual ribbing, cajoling, and pantomimed rivalry (they're professional actors, remember) started back in 2007 on the set of "X-Men Origins: Wolverine," aka the movie where Deadpool wasn't Deadpool. When the movie hit theaters in 2009, seven years before 2016's "Deadpool" hit theaters, fans may remember that Reynolds didn't so much play the merc with a mouth but the mouthless merc. Nonetheless, that film of questionable quality wound up granting us not only the future "Deadpool" franchise but Reynolds' friendship with Jackman, too. The two gentlemen poked fun at each other on set, and it all snowballed from there. And funny enough, it kind of started with fellow actor Scarlett Johansson.

As with many classic tales of embittered and brawling brothers, it all started with a damsel. Okay, not really. But it did kinda-sorta start with the original third point of the Hugh Jackman-Ryan Reynolds triangle: Scarlett Johansson. For those who might have forgotten or not known, Johansson and Reynolds were actually married for a short time from 2008 to 2011. Speaking to Gwyneth Paltrow on her "Goop" podcast, Johansson called Reynolds a "good guy," but said of her younger self to Vanity Fair that she "didn't really have an understanding of marriage" at the time and "romanticized it." She and Reynolds split up, and Reynolds went on to marry Blake Lively, with whom he shares four children.

In a story that keeps getting repeated again and again, the timing of Reynolds' marriage to Johansson was propitious for the future of action-comedies. The following year after they married, Reynolds and Jackman met on the set of "X-Men Origins: Wolverine," featuring a far-less funny version of Wade Wilson, i.e., Deadpool. As sites like Business Insider recount, Jackman and Johansson were friends, and Jackman took to jokingly (but maybe also not) "ream" Reynolds on set, saying things like, "Hey, you better be on your best behavior here, pal, because I'm watching." In reality, the two men got along very well, and they segued their banter online and made it a part of their public personas. 

At this point we've got about 15 years worth of back-and-forth jabs between Hugh Jackman and Ryan Reynolds to dig through. Some folks were confused at first when the two took their frenemy gag online (again: actors), but thankfully for them and everyone else, it was just for laughs. There's a quadrillion examples of the fake feud to cite, way too many to sift through in any structured, chronological way. In 2021, for instance, Jackman took to Instagram to mention Blake Lively's Betty Buzz mixer company, saying, "You are sunshine seven days a week, and you're a saint for marrying that man. Sorry ... not sorry." That same year, Reynolds took to TikTok to show off his socks — printed with pictures of Jackman's face — and captioned the video, "Socks to be Hugh." 

Two years earlier, in 2019, Jackman put on his one-man musical performance show, "The Man. The Music. The Show." At one point, he said to the audience (via YouTube), "Let's see Ryan Reynolds do that!" In response, Reynolds took to X (then Twitter) to record a sad birthday message for Jackman: "Hello Hugh. I was just going to wish you happy birthday. Then I saw what you said. In a word? Hurtful. Enjoy the show, Hugh Jackman." Then, after singing the happy birthday song, he yells, "And I'm not even f****** professionally trained Jackman you piece of s***!" and flips off the camera. This is a just a small handful of countless examples.

The Hugh Jackman and Ryan Reynolds fake feud took a fake break in 2019 at the onset of the very real COVID-19 pandemic They declared their truce by announcing a charity campaign that revealed their true colors, one that supported Feeding America, No Kid Hungry, Meals on Wheels, and World Central Kitchen. "The Jackmans and Reynolds have been mortal enemies for as long as there have been Jackmans and Reynoldses-ses," Reynolds said in the announcement video. "For generations, it's been a point of family honor to oppose each other," Jackson added. Nonetheless, Reynolds said, "For one day, and one day only, we've agreed to agree to not disagree. And only a pandemic could make that happen."

The truce also served the double purpose of promoting the gentlemen's respective beverages: Reynolds' Aviation Gin and Jackman's Laughing Man Coffee, the former of which is a classy take on traditional gin and the latter a global cooperative of coffee growers. In a video on Reynolds' YouTube channel — which also contains some legitimately funny, Reynolds-led Aviation Gin commercials — he said he was working 24/7 on an ad for Jackman's Laughing Man Coffee Company, a non-governmental organization that "lifts up communities around the world in the form of housing and scholarships." 

The truce didn't stop Reynolds from poking fun at Jackman, however. When Jackman announced his 24-year wedding anniversary to wife Deborra-Lee Furness on X in 2020, Reynolds quickly responded. "Hang in there, Deb," he wrote.

So remember we mentioned the video for the fake truce to Hugh Jackman and Ryan Reynolds' fake feud? And the pair talked about doing ads for each other's beverage businesses? And Reynolds said he was working on an ad 24/7? Well, this friendly opening and subsequent Reynolds-narrated Laughing Man Coffee ad quickly devolved back into duo's usual banter. By the time the two-minute video ended, that is. Yeah, the truce didn't last long. 

After the Laughing Man Coffee ad, the video cut back to the two, and Reynolds encouraged Jackman to show his reciprocal ad for Aviation Gin. Jackman said the ad wasn't quite ready yet, but the clip rolled anyway. Cue Jackman sitting on a leather sofa looking quite dapper. "Ryan Reynolds is a complete and total f****** a******," he said before pouring out an entire bottle of Aviation Gin on a table. And cut. 

About a year and a half later, in the middle of COVID-19, Jackman and Reynolds appeared in another video on Reynolds' YouTube channel called "Forgiveness." In the clip, they played off of their feigned rivalry to engage in another charitable venture, like they did previously with food-based charities. This time, folks who visited Sam's Club could choose to support either Laughing Man Coffee  or the SickKids Foundation. But as the video said on the bottom, the choice was just part of the fun, as both charities received the same donation.

It was really only during the lead-in to 2024's "Deadpool & Wolverine" that Hugh Jackman and Ryan Reynolds dropped their ongoing joke while making the promotional rounds for their movie. In loads of two-person interviews on Vanity Fair, LADBible, "Hot Ones," GQ, BuzzFeed (with puppies), MTV, Entertainment Tonight — basically everywhere — the two did their best to keep up the banter no matter how obvious it is that they're really close friends. And yet, some jokes persist. In one Variety interview, Jackman completes the sentence, "Ryan Reynolds is [blank]" by saying, "Ryan Reynolds is blank. Blank's a great word. ... Ryan Reynolds takes up so much air in the room."  

But of course, they're not fooling anyone at this point. People cited loads of comments from online fans around the world who praised their "bromance" as an example of "positive masculinity." "Beautiful human beings doing great things out in the world," one person said. In that same article, both men praise each other openly for being supportive, great at listening, non-judgmental, and more. In the aforementioned "Hot Ones" appearance, Jackman said, "When we are together outside of our public persona taking the piss out of each other, most of our conversations are very vulnerable." Meanwhile, in a 2024 Instagram post, Reynolds said that there isn't anyone "more thoughtful and classy than Hugh. He'll do anything for someone he loves. He'll do anything for someone he just met."

For more juicy details, check out the stars that actually can't stand Ryan Reynolds.