Here's Why Ryan Reynolds And Scarlett Johansson Divorced
Scarlett Johansson and Colin Jost got married in 2020, and Ryan Reynolds and Blake Lively are married with four kids and a habit of playfully trolling each other on social media. But before all that, Reynolds and Johansson were married for two years. While it's great that they've each moved on and found love again, why the split? It turns out that it could be down to timing and maturity.
Johansson told Vanity Fair "I mean, the first time I got married I was 23 years old. I didn't really have an understanding of marriage. Maybe I kind of romanticized it, I think, in a way."
Reynolds and Johansson got married in 2008 and divorced in 2010, and at the time of the split, they released a statement that said, "After long and careful consideration on both our parts, we've decided to end our marriage. We entered our relationship with love and it's with love and kindness we leave it. While privacy isn't expected, it's certainly appreciated" (via People).
Scarlett Johansson used her divorce experience for a role
Johansson may have also hinted at another reason for the split in Cosmopolitan (via E! Online), saying "The logistics of being with another actor are challenging. There has to be a real understanding of how you share your time, especially when two people's careers are going at the same rate. Or even if one person is more successful than the other, that also proves challenging. There may be a competitive thing." Seems like the former couple have been able to learn and grow since the split since they're both married to other actors again.
Johansson was able to use her own experience with divorce, as well as her parents', to inform her role in the 2019 film "Marriage Story." As she told Vanity Fair, "I had some kind of shared experience with the character, or with any person going through a divorce, really. I understood the bittersweetness of it somehow, in a way. All those kind of in-between feelings that the character has. I understood them because I had gone through them myself."
Johansson and Reynolds were both known for being stubborn
The couple got married at a wilderness retreat in Vancouver at a very private ceremony in 2008 (via E! Online). And it sounds like it was an easy decision at the time. "I never really thought about getting married — it just kind of happened. It seemed natural, the right thing to do. It was kind of a celebration of the time," Johansson told Glamour in an interview.
Shortly after their split, a source close to Reynolds revealed to InTouch some of what may have gone wrong with the relationship. "They're both strong-willed and stubborn people. There was a lack of warmth between them, that was troubling" (via Daily Mail). The source also said of the couple that "He can be an overbearing control freak. He's more traditional and she's more independent ... When he wanted her there, he expected her to drop everything and come to him. She got tired of the double standard."
After the divorce, Reynolds didn't want to get married again
After the divorce, Johansson told Cosmopolitan a reason she thought the marriage didn't last. "Relationships are complicated, and being married is a living, breathing process. I think I was not fully aware of the peaks and valleys. I wasn't prepared to hunker down and do the work. Both of us were extremely busy. We spent so much time apart. It's very difficult."
In the aftermath of the divorce, Reynolds said that at the time, he didn't want to get married again. "But you always re-evaluate these things," he told Details. "Any kind of crisis can be good. It wakes you up. I gotta say, I'm a different person than I was six months ago. I'm not out of it yet. At all. But I sense that as I do come through it, there's optimism. How can there not be?" (via Daily Mail). He has, of course, changed his mind as he married fellow "Green Lantern" actor Blake Lively in 2012, per Glamour.
The marriage was the first for both Johansson and Reynolds. Reynolds had previously been engaged to Canadian singer Alanis Morissette from 2005 to early 2007 (from US Weekly). After Reynolds, Johansson married Romain Dauriac in 2014, and they divorced in 2017; she's now married to "SNL" star Colin Jost (via Us Weekly).