The Especially Cringe Interaction Blake Lively Had With Obama When He Was POTUS: “It Got Worse!”

In 2015, Blake Lively said on a TV program that she felt embarrassed after her first meeting with then-President Barack Obama. While appearing on Late Night with Seth Meyers, she spilled the beans about her uncomfortable interaction with Obama. Lively revealed to Meyers how she was unable to control her nerves and asked Obama an unexpected question.

As reported by Vanity Fair, Lively said that she went into a cold sweat at Obama's greeting; she could only summon the words "I.. hope" when he introduced himself to the audience. According to her, things only got worse from there. In an attempt to regain her composure, Lively informed Obama that he had contacted her actor husband Ryan Reynolds during Obama's 2008 presidential campaign. She added, "So I said, ‘You left my husband a voicemail!’ And he was like, ‘...Cool!’ And I said, ‘And he deleted it!’ It was just like, why did I say that?"

"It got worse!" she said before adding, "I was like, ‘He deleted it cause you were just a senator then!’ And then I was like, ‘That was bad.’ So I was like, ‘Well, he didn't know you would be president. I mean, who thought that . . . you would . . . be pres . . . ummm . . . Can you leave my husband a voicemail?’ It was just getting worse." 

The actress informed Meyers that Obama had agreed to contact Reynolds, but when he asked for Lively's phone to make the call, she told him it had been 'confiscated' for the event. As per US Weekly, amid the raucous audience, Obama yelled out, "Someone gets Blake's phone!" Lively finally concluded, "He ended up leaving my husband an incredibly funny and ball-busting voicemail. I didn't get to take the picture with him shaking his hand and talking about the change we’re gonna make in the world, ’cause I was just like, dying."

Although Lively's encounter with Obama was one of a kind, her husband seemed to be having a great time with the Obama children. The very next year, in 2016, Reynolds met the former president's daughters, Malia and Sasha Obama, and a photo of the former giving her younger sister, Sasha, a thumbs-up while chatting with Reynolds went viral.

As reported by TIME, the picture was taken when the Obama daughters attended their first state dinner, which included dignitaries and celebrities like Justin Trudeau, Michael J. Fox, and Mike Myers. Reynolds and his wife Lively were also among the Canadians invited to the dinner. Many people on social media at the time thought the shot was adorable. One user shared on X, "Look at Malia's thumbs up to Sasha fangirling over Ryan Reynolds I love the Obama family so much." Another user shared a similar sentiment, "This picture of Malia giving Sasha the thumbs up while she talks to Ryan Reynolds is giving me every feeling."