Ryan Reynolds Pulls Seductive Prank on ‘It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia’ Star Rob McElhenney

Has there ever been a more beautiful showbiz bromance than Ryan Reynolds and It’s Always Sunny’s Rob McElhenney? Reynolds took things to a new level on McElhenney’s birthday with the kind of gift usually reserved for intimate lovers or doomed passengers on the Titanic. Appropriately, McElhenney’s big day happens to fall on the same date that the big ship sank to the bottom of the Atlantic.

Reynolds, dressed in Deadpool leather daddy gear, paid tribute to birthday boy McElhenney in a social media video. "For his big day this year, I financed an expedition to the ocean floor to retrieve a few bottles of Wrexham Lager — which was actually on that maiden voyage — to use in an epic birthday toast," Reynolds says about the beer that shares the name of the soccer team he co-owns with McElhenney. “We searched and searched. And while unfortunately we didn't find any drinkable Wrexham Lager, what we did find was even more beautiful...”

Jack’s French girls were never like this.

Please, please don’t embarrass McElhenney, Reynolds implored fans. Don’t head to Vistaprint to purchase pillows and tote bags adorned with “all of Rob's splendor and soft, delicate chest hair.” Don’t paste McElhenney’s buck-nekkid torso all over social media, Reynolds asked, and for God’s sake, don’t travel to the Tŷ Pawb Gallery in Wrexham, where the provocative prank will be hung among genuine works of art. 

“Just do as I am, and simply wish Rob a happy birthday,” said Reynolds. “We’ll see you in League One.”

Oh yeah — the gag was also in celebration of Wrexham AFC, the soccer team owned by McElhenney and Reynolds, being promoted to League One. That’s the second-highest division in the English Football League. “A few years ago, if you had told me I would be crying tears of joy over a football match taking place in North Wales,” Reynolds said in another Instagram post, “you would be @robmcelhenney.” 

McElhenney’s seductive portrait is just the latest in a series of birthday pranks that the two bros have played on one another, according to Entertainment Weekly. Others include:

• A memorial urinal erected in McElhenney’s honor
• Reynolds’s grotesque Deadpool face emblazoned on a blimp
• A song dedicated to teaching people how to pronounce “McElhenney”
• An actual park in Wrexham, Wales, decorated with green lanterns in memory of Reynolds’s most critically reviled movie

Isn’t it bromantic?