Home » Latest » Trending TV » Ryan Reynolds Reveals How He Snagged the “Peloton Wife” for Aviation Gin

Ryan Reynolds Reveals How He Snagged the “Peloton Wife” for Aviation Gin

6

InfoSearched 65 0 Trending TV

8.6

SaveSavedRemoved 2

Ryan Reynolds explains how his gin brand turned a viral punchline into a punchline of its own.

Six days after Aviation American Gin dropped a parody ad starring the “Peloton Wife,” Ryan Reynolds sat down with Jimmy Fallon and walked through exactly how fast his team moved to make it happen. What started as internet ridicule aimed at actress Monica Ruiz turned into a 36-to-48-hour sprint by Reynolds’ agency, Maximum Effort, to hand her the last word.

• Reynolds detailed on The Tonight Show in December 2019 how Maximum Effort tracked down Monica Ruiz and produced the Aviation Gin spot within roughly 36 to 48 hours of conceiving the idea.
• The resulting ad, “The Gift That Doesn’t Give Back,” released December 6, 2019, showed a dazed Ruiz at a bar with friends toasting “new beginnings” and racked up millions of views across Twitter and YouTube within hours.
• Reynolds also recounted a barricade collapse at Comic-Con Experience in São Paulo while promoting 6 Underground, joking that “Free Guy” co-star Joe Keery instinctively shielded his drink instead of the fans around him.

The Peloton Backlash That Started It

The original Peloton holiday commercial, which went viral in November 2019, showed Ruiz’s character receiving an exercise bike from her husband and chronicling her fitness journey on camera over the following year. The internet did not read it as sweet. Critics piled on almost immediately, calling the ad tone-deaf and accusing it of sexist undertones, and the clip became one of the most mocked pieces of advertising of the year.

Ruiz, a working actress with no control over how the spot would be received, absorbed the brunt of the joke. That’s the moment Reynolds and Maximum Effort saw an opening — not to pile on, but to hand Ruiz a punchline of her own.

Reynolds’ 36-to-48-Hour Turnaround

Speaking with Fallon, Reynolds laid out the timeline in blunt terms: from the moment his team decided to act to the moment the ad was shot, roughly a day and a half passed. Maximum Effort found Ruiz, pitched her on flipping the narrative, and got her in front of cameras before the Peloton discourse even had time to cool off.

The finished product, titled “The Gift That Doesn’t Give Back,” dropped on December 6, 2019. It put Ruiz at a bar with two friends who greet her with “you’re safe here” before raising a toast to “new beginnings,” ending with her downing an Aviation Gin martini. The gag was simple: acknowledge the joke everyone was already making, then let Ruiz walk away from it laughing.

“You’re safe here.”

Millions of Views, Almost Overnight

The parody spot didn’t just land — it exploded. Reynolds told Fallon the video pulled in millions of views across Twitter and YouTube within hours of going live, effectively hijacking the same viral machine that had turned on the original Peloton ad just weeks earlier. It’s the kind of rapid-response marketing Reynolds has built a reputation on, similar to the media blitz he’s run for other projects during appearances like his Tonight Show stops promoting his films.

The CCXP Barricade Story

Fallon and Reynolds didn’t stop at gin. Reynolds also recapped his trip to Comic-Con Experience in São Paulo, Brazil, where he was promoting 6 Underground. He described a chaotic scene in which a stage barricade collapsed toward the crowd — and singled out his Free Guy co-star Joe Keery, best known for Stranger Things, for his reflexes in the moment. According to Reynolds, as the barricade gave way, Keery’s first instinct wasn’t to help fans — it was to protect his own drink.

Ruiz’s Aviation Gin cameo has already outperformed the ad that made her a target, and Reynolds spent his Fallon appearance treating it like exactly what it was: a 48-hour hustle that turned a viral pile-on into a viral win for everyone involved except Peloton.