Betrayal ... actor Ryan Reynolds caught his friend selling photos of his daughter James. Picture: Sonia Recchia/Getty Images/AFP

“A guy that I’d known for my whole life, one of my closest friends growing up, he had been shopping pictures of my baby around,” the 38-year-old told GQ. “I kind of got in front of it, which is good. But it was a slightly dark period. A bad couple of weeks.”

“It was like death,” he said of the experience. “It was like one of those devastating things to find out.”

It wasn’t difficult for Reynolds to figure out who was hawking the photos.

“I mean, I don’t think he thought he would ever be caught,” he said. “But it’s a pretty narrow group of people that I would send photos like that to. They’re just, like, my closest family and my closest friends: ‘Here’s us in the delivery room!’”

Private couple ... Blake Lively (left) and Ryan Reynolds are parents to James. Picture: Pascal Le Segretain/Getty ImagesSource:

It seems the friend needed extra cash, and his opportunities to ask Reynolds for money had run out.

“Well, I think he’d ask for a cheque enough times where I was like, ‘There’s no more cheques to be had.’”

Blake Lively’s husband said the entire situation was “shocking.”

“There isn’t really a conversation to have. It’s just, ‘Oh, well, now I’m never going to see you or talk to you again, unfortunately.’ That’s kind of how it works out.”

This story originally appeared in The New York Post.