It’s been over a year since Taylor Swift name-checked all three of Ryan Reynolds and Blake Lively’s daughters, and the actor still thinks it’s “pretty damn amazing.”
On Thursday, the Free Guy actor appeared on SiriusXM and discussed how he feels about “Betty,” the popular Folklore track that names his daughters — James, Inez and Betty — while telling the story about heartbreak and regret. The song is “from the perspective of a 17-year-old boy,” Swift told country radio last August, while also confirming she named the three characters “after my friends’ kids.”
Explore
See latest videos, charts and news
See latest videos, charts and news
“Yeah, the names are the names of our kids, but we trust her implicitly, and she’s very sensitive to any of that stuff. And obviously the song has nothing to do with our kids other than our kids’ names,” Reynolds said in the new interview. “But what an honor. I don’t know, we thought it was pretty damn amazing. We still do. I still wonder walking down the street, shake my head, thinking, ‘I can’t believe that happened.'”
It’s certainly not the first time members of the Lively and Reynolds household have played a part in Swift’s discography. Their eldest daughter James opened Swift’s Reputation single “Gorgeous” in 2017, and two years later, Reynolds made a cameo in the music video for “You Need to Calm Down” from Swift’s 2019 LP Lover. He also directed a Match.com ad that first previewed the pop star’s Fearless (Taylor’s Version) re-recording of “Love Story.”
But just because there’s a family pattern, did that mean their daughters were aware of how they were contributing with “Betty”? “We surprised them with it. Yeah, they didn’t know. They had no idea,” said Reynolds. “We don’t tell them anything. We find that they’re most compliant if you offer them no access to outside information.”
Watch Reynolds discuss “Betty” in the new interview below.