Ryan Reynolds Helps the Peloton Wife 'Escape' with a Hilarious New Ad Starring the Same Actress!
Mystery actress — now famously known as “Peloton wife,” has landed a new role!
On Friday, Ryan Reynolds revealed a brand new commercial for his distilled spirits line Aviation Gin, featuring none other than the star of the controversial Peloton Christmas ad, PEOPLE confirms.
“Exercise bike not included. #AviationGin,” Reynolds captioned the clip, poking fun at the viral commercial.
In the video, an exhausted-looking Peloton wife is seen staring blankly while seated at a bar with two friends. After coming out of her daze, she tells her pals, “This gin is really smooth.”
Her friends agree as one offers “We can get you another one” while the other friend says, “You’re safe here.”
“To new beginnings,” Peloton wife responds back, raising her glass before quickly gulping the cocktail in one breath.
“There you go, take this too,” her friend says to her before adding, “You look great by the way!” The comment may be in reference to the many hours Peloton wife spent on the bike her husband got her for Christmas.
The clip then transitions to show a bottle of Aviation Gin.
Exercise bike not included. #AviationGin
A post shared by Ryan Reynolds (@vancityreynolds) on Dec 6, 2019 at 5:09pm PST
Fans in the comment section raved over Reynold’s decision to cast Peloton wife writing, “OMG brilliant.”
“Peloton actress!!!” another fan wrote.
Last week, Peloton released a holiday ad in support of their high-end fitness equipment — and instead of encouraging consumers to shop, the commercial has stirred controversy.
The 30-second video starts with a husband surprising his wife with the brand’s $2,245 (and up) stationary bike on Christmas morning. She then goes for her first ride, admitting she’s “a little nervous, but excited.”
Subsequent scenes (playing over Tal Bachman’s 1999 hit “She’s So High”) see the wife rushing in the door after work to get her workout in, and waking up at 6 a.m. to do the same.
“A year ago, I didn’t realize how much this would change me,” she says at the end of the commercial, as she and her husband sit on a couch and watch video footage of her workouts from the past year. “Thank you.”
Twitter users came out in droves to discuss the ad, mocking everything from its supposed message of a husband wanting his seemingly already fit wife to lose weight to her being “nervous” about riding an indoor bike.
“Oh, yes I love snow. Thank you dear husband for gifting me with a winter wonderland that makes everything hard to navigate while you left for Miami for the year. How did you guess a peloton was all I needed to keep warm?” one user tweeted alongside a screen shot from the commercial.
“I’m gonna marry the peloton wife and let her do whatever she wants and bake her garlic bread every night and give her scarves for Christmas,” another wrote, to which a third responded, “Ad confirms their target audience is rich, in-shape people.”
No offense to the Peloton lady but if your Christmas gift to me is just a video of you using the Christmas gift I got you last year then you’re not getting another Christmas present from me again
— Pete Blackburn (@PeteBlackburn) December 3, 2019
I’m gonna marry the peloton wife and let her do whatever she wants and bake her garlic bread every night and give her scarves for Christmas
— Sophia Benoit (@1followernodad) December 2, 2019
The only way to enjoy that Peloton ad is to think of it as the first minute of an episode of Black Mirror
— Jess Dweck (@TheDweck) December 2, 2019
While the name of the woman in the ad has not yet been revealed, the husband has since come forward saying the commercial, “turned into a nasty thing.”
On Friday, Sean Hunter — who stars in the Peloton commercial as the husband who gifts his wife the expensive exercise bike — opened up about the negative backlash the ad has received.
“People turned down a pretty dark path and it turned into a nasty thing,” the actor and teacher said in an interview with Good Morning America.
“Once something goes viral, and it turns viral, people jump on that negative bandwagon and start to create any dialogue they want,” he continued.
“My image is being associated with sexism, with the patriarchy, with abuse, with these words that I am seeing people write about me — that’s not who I am,” Hunter told GMA, adding that the negative response to the ad makes him question the effects of social media on today’s society.
He concluded, “The aftermath of the commercial has left me with more questions than answers, and this is only half the story. I reflect on what my co-actor must be dealing with, as she’s the other 25 seconds of the story.”
Actor in the viral #Peloton ad speaks out. “That’s not who I am.” @ReeveWill has more. https://t.co/sMzVDFttxV pic.twitter.com/GflIL7gpD3
— Good Morning America (@GMA) December 6, 2019
Despite the flood of social media criticism, Peloton is standing by the holiday commercial.
“We constantly hear from our members how their lives have been meaningfully and positively impacted after purchasing or being gifted a Peloton Bike or Tread, often in ways that surprise them,” a company spokesperson recently told PEOPLE in a statement.
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“Our holiday spot was created to celebrate that fitness and wellness journey,” the spokesperson continued. “While we’re disappointed in how some have misinterpreted this commercial, we are encouraged by — and grateful for — the outpouring of support we’ve received from those who understand what we were trying to communicate.”
Following the ad’s release, the workout brand experienced a seemingly correlated nine percent drop in their market value on Tuesday — their largest single-day drop since October, Markets Insider reported. It cost the company nearly $942 million, bringing their total market value down to roughly $9.4 billion.