The company revealed to be at the center of Blake Lively’s nasty battle with Justin Baldoni has sparked a new round of internet rumors that she began her affair with Ryan Reynolds while he was still married.
Its very name – Vanzan, a nod, internet sleuths believe, to their hometowns – and the fact that it was registered in California in September 2010, shortly after Lively and Reynolds met on the set of The Green Lantern, have set tongues wagging.
At the time Reynolds was still married to Scarlett Johansson, although they filed for divorce that December. Lively would dump boyfriend Penn Badgley just a month after the company was formed.
Zack Peter, who runs the popular celebrity gossip podcast No Filter, posted about the potential scandal in a video on Monday: ‘It’s been rumored that these two had an affair on the set of The Green Lantern, that’s where they met.
‘His social media handle is “Vancity”, which is in reference to Vancouver, which is where he grew up.
‘Could “Zan” be a reference to Tarzana, where she grew up?’ asked Peter.
Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds company Vanzan Inc. was at the center of DailyMail.com’s investigation into her sham lawsuit that was used to supeona the infamous texts that kicked off her legal war with It Ends With Us co-star Justin Baldoni
The company was founded on September 29, 2010. The same year the A-list couple met on the set of Green Lantern while Reynolds was still married to actress Scarlett Johannson. A source told DailyMail.com that Eric Rothchild was originally listed as an agent for the firm
Only a month after the company was founded, Lively broke it off with her Gossip Girl co-star Penn Badgley. A few months later, Reynolds and Johansson announced their divorce
‘Ryan Reynolds isn’t listed on this company but Eric Binder is. Eric Binder happens to be Ryan Reynolds’ business manager.’
‘Is it possible Blake and Ryan formed this company together in 2010 around when they met?’
And does that mean the twosome – who officially began dating in 2011 – had actually close enough to make that kind of commitment?
The answer is a resounding No.
DailyMail.com has discovered Lively only got involved with Vanzan several years after it was incorporated, according to a source formerly close to the original company.
The source revealed the firm was controversial even back then, with a murky past filled with lawsuits and subpoenas.
Blake Lively quietly filed a clandestine lawsuit months before her legal war with Justin Baldoni became public in order to obtain the bombshell texts that became central to her case
Lively and Reynolds announced their relationship in 2011. The actor has doubled down that the were just friends before they went public to quash any affair rumors (PICTURED: Green Lantern premiere in 2011)
A 2021 California company filing for Vanzan Inc list a business address in New York City that matches the office Reynolds uses for his business management and its CEO as ‘Blake Reynolds’
Vanzan was first set up in Delaware in 2008 – before Reynolds and Lively had even met – and first filed to do business in California in 2010.
Its California filings listed Eric Rothchild as the agent for the firm, based in San Diego in 2010.
A former colleague of Rothchild told DailyMail.com they were there when Rothchild set it up, as a vehicle for their telesales and marketing business – and was shocked to hear of Lively and Reynolds’ later links to the firm.
‘I remember sitting around with Eric Rothchild when we came up with the name. We thought it sounded official and cool and old east coast money or whatever,’ the source, who asked not to be named, told DailyMail.com.
Rothchild and Vanzan later got caught up in a lawsuit for allegedly failing to follow through on an office lease, and were also sued by several other parties in San Diego courts in 2010 and 2011.
One plaintiff, San Diego firm the Wafico Company, was awarded a $100,000 judgment against Vanzan in June 2011.
Corporate filings in New York show there’s another company in that state called ‘Vanzan Inc.’, set up in 2019 and registered at the Manhattan offices of Reynolds’ business management firm, ML Management
The source told DailyMail.com that he believes the couple got involved later in the firm as ‘no way in the world that any person with a brain’ would involved its with the company who found itself in murky legal waters at the time – including this 2011 lawsuit
One plaintiff, the San Diego-based firm Wafico Company, was awarded a $100,395 judgment against Vanzan in June 2011 after Vanzan failed to follow through on an office lease
Rothchild filed for bankruptcy the following year.
The source who worked with him said they later discovered that he had multiple names, including Brian Urquhart and Brian Knapp.
The Federal Trade Commission also filed a civil case against Rothchild in 2010, saying he failed to comply with their subpoena investigating his company’s alleged violations of consumer data laws.
Now, years later, Vanzan has ended up at the center of another controversy involving a subpoena – when Lively used the company to file a lawsuit in September 2024 and obtain a subpoena to Baldoni’s ex-publicist Stephanie Jones, thereby grabbing hundreds of texts used to back up her claim of an alleged smear campaign orchestrated by Baldoni.
Baldoni denies the claims, and in return is suing Lively for defamation.
The source who was involved with Vanzan in 2010 said Lively or Reynolds must have have become involved in a later reincarnation of the company, not associated with Rothchild or telesales.
The sham lawsuit exclusively obtained by DailyMail.com showed the covert case was filed without names of the defendants in an apparent bid to avoid detection
The copy of the case summons shows it was dated September 27, 2024, seven weeks after the It Ends With Us premiere
The film at the heart of the feud, based on the 2016 bestseller by Colleen Hoover, was released in August and was a box office hit
‘The only way that Ryan Reynolds dude and Blake Lively could have any involvement is, the corporation could have expired and they could have just renamed it, or I suppose it’s possible that they bought the existing corporation,’ the source said.
‘But there’s no way in the world that any person with a brain would have wanted to buy that company with the legal s**t that was behind it.’
Indeed, California records show Vanzan became inactive in 2013. The next public filing is in 2021, listing ‘Blake Reynolds’ (the actress’s married name) as CEO, secretary and Chief Financial Officer and an address at the office of her husband’s business management firm in New York.
Corporate filings in New York show there is also a company in that state called ‘Vanzan Inc.’, set up in 2019 and registered at the Manhattan offices of Reynolds’s business management firm, ML Management.
