Jackman’s snub has really stood out because he’s been getting rave reviews for the musical drama “Song Sung Blue.” He co-stars with Kate Hudson as a real-life Vietnam vet and recovering addict who finds love and a new purpose in life by leading a Neil Diamond tribute band. As Jackman’s romantic interest, Hudson scored a nomination, for Best Performance by a Female Actor in a Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy. But Jackman, who is one half of the movie duo’s “sparkling chemistry and impressive musicality,” was left out.
So what’s going on? Yes, it’s a pretty crowded field for male actors this year, but the Golden Globes have previously loved Jackman, according to veteran Hollywood journalist and gossip reporter Rob Shuter. Speaking on The Nerve podcast Thursday with Maureen Callahan, Shuter agreed that Jackman has become a somewhat scandalized figure in the past year, first because he left his long-time wife, Deborra-Lee Furness, 70, for Sutton Foster, a younger actress, and then because of his friendship with Hollywood super couple Ryan Reynolds and Blake Lively, which briefly thrust him into the middle of Lively’s legal drama with Justin Baldoni.
“Hugh Jackman, whose brand is also Mr. Nice Guy, his brand took a huge hit when he left his wife for his co star,” Callahan said, referring to how Jackman’s romance with Foster began as they co-stared in the 2021-23 revival of “The Music Man” on Broadway.
In 2023, Jackman and Deborra-Lee Furness, announced that they had separated after 27 years of marriage. A year later, it came out that the separation was preceded by Jackman, 57, and Foster, 50, becoming very close during the production of “The Music Man,” though people close to them always denied that they started dating during the show.
Writing on his Naughty But Nice Substack, Shuter said that the connection between Jackman and Foster sparked during “The Music Man,” and he was the one doing the pursuing. Foster, too, was married and was the mother of a young daughter. Jackman “acted like a teenage boy around her,” one insider told Shuter, as his marriage to Furness had been “emotionally done for years.”
To promote “Song Sung Blue,” Jackman invited Foster to join him on the red carpet for the film’s New York City premiere Thursday night. Even though he and Furness finalized their divorce in June, he and Foster have been cautious about flaunting their relationship too much in public, given its tabloid-esque beginnings.
Meanwhile, Jackman’s other scandalous association involves Ryan Reynolds, whose own nice guy persona also has been damaged in the past year, in his case by his wife’s lawsuit against Baldoni, her “It Ends With Us” director and co-star. Lively accused Baldoni of engaging in sexually inappropriate behavior during the film’s 2023 production and of launching a P.R. smear campaign against her to silence her. Baldoni countered by alleging that Lively used the harassment allegations as a pretext for her and Reynolds, her powerful movie star husband, to wrest control of the movie from him.
Jackman has been drawn into this conflict because Reynolds, his “Deadpool and Wolverine” co-star, and Lively drafted him into helping to promote “It Ends With Us” when it was released in the summer of 2024, while Baldoni was pushed to the side. They also had earlier allowed Jackman and their other celebrity friend, Taylor Swift, to be present when Reynolds dressed down Baldoni for his alleged mistreatment of his wife, People reported. According to the documents, Baldoni went to Reynolds and Lively’s New York City penthouse in 2023 where Reynolds “unloaded” on Baldoni about “how horrible it was” that he would ask about his wife’s weight. In front of Jackman and Swift, Reynolds also alleged that Baldoni “was fat shaming Blake.”
Baldoni was left feeling “completely embarrassed,” apologized and even broked down in “tears,” the documents said. Critics of Lively and Reynolds say that Baldoni, a little known TV actor who was just starting out as a director, would have felt intimidated in the presence of major stars like Reynolds, Jackman and Swift.
Callahan described the dressing-down incident as “bullying” and said that Reynolds and Lively were “trying to destroy Baldoni’s career before it ever gets off the ground.” She asked, “Who would trust either one of them?” After news of that incident broke last month, she said that Jackman would probably want to keep his distance from Reynolds, because he can’t be associated with that kind of “bullying” behavior and afford another “ding” against his reputation.
Shuter concurred and wondered if Jackman’s failure to score his Oscar nomination had to do with either his Foster romance or with his Reynolds association. “That’s his audience,” Shuter said about Jackmand and th Globes. Shuter added: “People are really cautious about Hugh. The last things he needs is the stench of Ryan Reynolds around him, too.”