Ryan Reynolds has spoken out about and apologized for him and Blake Lively's wedding taking place on the site of a former plantation.
Anyone who has planned a wedding will know that finding the perfect location is one of the most important elements to get right. A subpar location can lead to the rest of the plans unraveling pretty quickly. Chances are when a couple is picking the perfect locations for their nuptials, what that location may have been 200 years prior won't even cross their minds.
It certainly didn't appear to when Hollywood couple Ryan Reynolds and Blake Lively got married back in 2012. Reynolds and Lively got married on the site of a former plantation, where black people would have been kept as slaves decades before. During a recent interview with Fast Company, Reynolds said he and Lively are "unreservedly sorry" for having the ceremony take place where it did.
"What we saw at the time was a wedding venue on Pinterest. What we saw after was a place built upon devastating tragedy," Reynolds explained. The Deadpool star added that it's "impossible to reconcile", but that hasn't stopped him and Lively from trying ever since they realized the mistake they made when it comes to the location of their wedding.
Reynolds and Lively remarried at home a few years later, then knowing the history behind where their original ceremony took place. However, the actor went on to say during the recent interview that after things like this people can shut down or reframe the situation and take the action. The couple decided to do the latter. They donated $200,000 to the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, and last year were reported to have made two $1 million donations to the NAACP Legal Defense Fund and the Young Center for Immigrant Children's Rights.
Reynolds also added that he is reluctant to talk about social justice, especially right now, as the voices of white celebrities can drown out those of non-white people, even if that isn't the intention. Reynolds prefers to speak through his actions, and is attempting to do that via diversity hiring in his company Maximum Effort, and providing his employees with equity in the company.
Source: Fast Company
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