Ryan Reynolds buys second soccer team amid Justin Baldoni legal battle

Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney are heading to Colombia

Ryan Reynolds has announced he is investing in another football club, with the significant business move coming the same day it was revealed that he and his wife Blake Lively are being sued for $400m by her It Ends With Us director Justin Baldoni.

Reynolds and It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia creator Rob McElhenney took over Welsh club Wrexham AFC in November 2020, with their ownership of the team forming the basis of the reality show Welcome to Wrexham.

On 16 January, the Colombian football team La Equidad announced on social media that Reynolds and McElhenney are part of a consortium who have taken over the club. The group, led by real estate investor Al Tylis and football executive Sam Porter, also includes actors Eva Longoria and Kate Upton, baseball player Justin Verlander and former NBA star Shawn Marion.

It has not yet been announced whether the Bogota-based team will get a similar reality show treatment.

The news came the same day it was announced that Reynolds and Lively are being sued by Baldoni for allegedly attempting to “destroy” his reputation and career.

The lawsuit, which has been seen by The Independent, was filed in the Southern District of New York yesterday on behalf of Baldoni, producer Jamey Heath, publicist Jennifer Abel and crisis publicist Melissa Nathan.

Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney are buying another football team after the success they’ve had with Wrexham (Getty)

The suit accuses Lively and Reynolds of civil extortion, defamation, false light invasion of privacy, breach of implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing, intentional interference with contractual relations, intentional interference with prospective economic advantage, and negligent interference with prospective economic advantage.

In a statement to The Independent, Baldoni’s lawyer Bryan Freedman said: “This lawsuit is a legal action based on an overwhelming amount of untampered evidence detailing Blake Lively and her team’s duplicitous attempt to destroy Justin Baldoni, his team and their respective companies by disseminating grossly edited, unsubstantiated, new and doctored information to the media.”

Reached for comment by The Independent, Lively’s legal team responded: “This latest lawsuit from Justin Baldoni, Wayfarer Studios, and its associates is another chapter in the abuser playbook. This is an age-old story: a woman speaks up with concrete evidence of sexual harassment and retaliation and the abuser attempts to turn the tables on the victim. This is what experts call DARVO. Deny. Attack. Reverse Victim and Offender.”

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Baldoni has already sued The New York Times for libel over their reporting of Lively’s claims about him, and his lawyers have also accused Reynolds of mocking Baldoni through the “Nicepool” character in his recent movie, Deadpool & Wolverine.