Peter Kramer/NBC(NEW YORK) — Ryan Reynolds loves being a father to daughter James, but being a celebrity dad is another matter.
The actor revealed in a new interview with GQ magazine that he was betrayed by one of his closest friends soon after wife Blake Lively gave birth to their daughter late last year.
“A guy that I’d known for my whole life, one of my closest friends growing up, he had been shopping pictures of my baby around. I kind of got in front of it, which is good. But it was a slightly dark period. A bad couple of weeks,” Reynolds explained.
The actor compared the experience to “a death.”
“It was like one of those devastating things to find out,” he said, adding that his former friend did it for the money. “I don’t think he thought he would ever be caught. But it’s a pretty narrow group of people that I would send photos like that to. They’re just, like, my closest family and my closest friends: ‘Here’s us in the delivery room!'”
When the Green Lantern star figured out who did it, he cut ties with his childhood friend. “There isn’t really a conversation to have,” he said. “It’s just, ‘Oh, well, now I’m never going to see you or talk to you again, unfortunately.’ That’s kind of how it worked out.”
Before the photo came out, Reynolds was hit by a car driven by a paparazzo, most likely trying to get the first snap of his daughter.
“The whole thing becomes so absurd that all you can do is laugh about it and just go, ‘This isn’t the real world. This isn’t how real things work.’ But it happens to be happening right now. And it will pass. And it does. It passes. It all passed,” he said.
Meanwhile, Reynolds loves spending time with his daughter at home. “I genuinely like it,” he told GQ. “I like being a father. I like having a daughter. I would like to have more kids. You know, it seems to suit me pretty well.”
He’s even surprised at how patient he is. “I feel like I could sometimes have a bit of a short fuse, but there’s just been this weirdly endless supply of patience,” he said. “I have no problem waking up five times in the middle of the night and changing diapers, and as exhausted as you get, I have this stupid grin on my face all the time. And that’s not because I have a nanny or something like that. It’s just us right now and I love it.”
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