Ryan Reynolds apologises for plantation wedding with Blake Lively
Ryan Reynolds has apologised for his wedding with Blake Lively in 2012, which took place at Boone Hall, a former slave plantation.
"It's something we'll always be deeply and unreservedly sorry for," the actor told Fast Company in a recent interview.
"It's impossible to reconcile."
The father-of-three explained that he and Lively were not aware of the history of the location at the time they chose it as their wedding venue.
AdvertisementAdvertise with NZME."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.
While the couple remarried again at their home, Reynolds said they are still "ashamed" of their first wedding.
"Shame works in weird ways," he said.
"A giant f***ing mistake like that can either cause you to shut down or it can reframe things and move you into action. It doesn't mean you won't f**k up again. But repatterning and challenging lifelong social conditioning is a job that doesn't end."
AdvertisementAdvertise with NZME.In the wake of the Black Lives Matter movement, Reynolds and Lively have since donated US$1.5 million to the NAACP Legal Defence and Educational Fund which fights for racial justice.
The couple has also launched The Group Effort Initiative, a programme to bring more "Black, Indigenous, people of colour or people from marginalised and excluded communities" into the film industry.
"We want to educate ourselves about other people's experiences and talk to our kids about everything, all of it … especially our own complicity," they wrote in a statement released on social media in May.
"We talk about our bias, blindness and our own mistakes. We look back and see so many mistakes which have led us to deeply examine who we are and who we want to become. They've led us to huge avenues of education."
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