In June 2026, a rumor circulated online that actor Ryan Reynolds donated the $27 million he earned from the "Deadpool" movie to Parkinson's disease research.
The first of the "Deadpool" superhero movies came out in 2016 and reportedly made more than $782 million worldwide.
One Facebook page that shared the claim said (archived) Reynolds secretly donated the "entire twenty-seven million dollars" he made from "Deadpool" to The Michael J. Fox Foundation, which funds research into Parkinson's disease.
The rumor spread elsewhere on Facebook (archived, archived) and Snopes readers also searched our site for more information.
While Reynolds has worked with The Michael J. Fox Foundation since 2008 and has sat on its board of directors since 2009, there is no evidence he donated his "Deadpool" earnings to the nonprofit. Rather, in 2024, Reynolds reportedly told The New York Times he spent at least part of "the little salary [he] had left" paying for "Deadpool" writers Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick to be on set while the movie filmed. Therefore, Reynolds could not have donated "the entire twenty-seven million dollars" he allegedly made on "Deadpool" to The Michael J. Fox Foundation, as alleged in the claim.
During that interview, Reynolds also suggested he made little money from the film, saying he "even let go of getting paid to do the movie just to put it back on the screen."
We found no evidence from reputable sources on Google, Yahoo or DuckDuckGo of Reynolds' alleged payment to The Michael J. Fox Foundation (archived, archived, archived).
In short, the rumor is fictional. It originated from Facebook accounts that use artificial intelligence tools to create inspiring or shocking stories about public figures. Therefore, we've rated this claim false.
Snopes contacted The Michael J. Fox Foundation and an agent for Reynolds for responses to the claim and await replies to our queries.
The posts spreading the false rumor about Reynolds' alleged donation feature out-of-context photos and text that is likely AI-generated.
The three Facebook posts above include edited versions of a screenshot from a 2014 interview with Fox and Reynolds, two years before the premiere of "Deadpool."
GPTZero and ZeroGPT, tools that aim to detect AI-generated text, determined with 48.5-100% certainty that the posts' captions were generated using artificial intelligence software. The captions are vague on specific details about the alleged donation. For example, they do not specify how they knew Reynolds made exactly $27 million from "Deadpool" or exactly how the alleged donation became known. The posts summarize quotes from Reynolds and his wife, actor Blake Lively, that online searches did not locate outside of the Facebook posts themselves.
The fictional story about Reynolds resembles glurge, which Dictionary.com defines as "stories, often sent by email, that are supposed to be true and uplifting, but which are often fabricated and sentimental."
Snopes has previously investigated whether Reynolds wore a shirt that said Kamala Harris "removes nasty orange stains." We routinely investigate rumors about AI-generated content.