Blake Lively’s Heartfelt Plea to Media: Leave Her Children Alone

Blake Lively has made it pretty clear where she draws the line: take all the photos of her you want, leave her kids out of it. And yes, she will say it to your face.

The latest moment: polite, firm, and with hot chocolate

Lively popped by the Blake Brown x Stoney Clover Holiday Pop-Up, mingled with fans, and posed for photos. Paparazzi were there too, and she handled them calmly. She walked up and asked them not to submit any shots that included her children. Her words were simple:

'Any photos that my kids were in... can you please not submit those?'

Then she wished them happy holidays, thanked them for being respectful, and even offered hot chocolate because, yes, it was freezing. It was the most Blake Lively way to set a boundary.

This has been a thing for years

Back in 2021, a publication ran street photos of Lively with her daughters — including one where she was carrying her youngest — and paired them with a separate image of her smiling and waving. The way it was edited made it look like she was happily posing for the cameras with her kids. She was not.

Lively called the post out as misleading, saying the edit was 'deceitful.' She explained that the actual situation was ugly: a man had been stalking them all day, jumping out from hiding to get shots. A stranger on the street even confronted the photographers because it was so upsetting to watch. When Lively tried to approach the shooter the outlet had hired and speak to him calmly, he ran off — only to pop out again on the next block. She also questioned the outlet’s ethics in a pointed message:

'Do you do background checks on the photographers you pay to stalk children? Where is your morality here? Or do you simply not care about the safety of children?'

After she demanded the images be removed, the outlet pulled the post.

She has also pressed fans and fan accounts to stop

When a fan account shared paparazzi photos of her daughters, Lively jumped into the comments and called it disturbing. She reminded them she had already told them that these men stalk and harass her kids, and that the account had promised to stop posting those pictures. She called the behavior exploitative, asked them to delete the images, and made it very clear: some parents might be fine with this — she and Ryan Reynolds are not. When people started unfollowing the account, she thanked them and said their integrity made a difference.

The family basics

• Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds have four kids: James, Inez, Betty, and their son, Olin.

Bottom line

Fame is not a free pass to photograph someone’s kids, and Lively isn’t pretending otherwise. She’s been consistent, she’s been public, and she’s been polite about it — right up until she has to raise her voice. Honestly, good.