Ryan Reynolds Filmed His Colonoscopy & We Should All Be Grateful for It

The actors teamed up to raise awareness for colon cancer

Deadpool star Ryan Reynolds has had his share of firsts, but allowing a video crew to capture his colonoscopy screening live has to be near the top. Reynolds bet friend and fellow chairman of the Welsh Wrexham Association Football Club, Rob McElhenny, that he wouldn’t learn how to speak Welsh. Unfortunately for Reynolds, he did, so Reynolds kept his end of the bargain.

Both Reynolds and McElhenny, who star in the fabulous documentary Welcome to Wrexham, joined the Lead from Behind an organization aiming to “make colon cancer famous.”

“It’s not every day that you can raise awareness about something that will most definitely save lives. That’s enough motivation for me to let you in on a camera being shoved up my a**. The procedure and prep were painless but the discomfort of filming and sharing the process was the hardest part,” he said.

“Did they find Rosebud up there?” Reynolds joked with the nurse after the procedure. While Reynolds brings humor to the situation, colon cancer is on the rise for people under 50. It is the third most frequently diagnosed cancer in the United States, according to the American Cancer Society.

Although McElhenney won the bet, he, too, underwent a videotaped colonoscopy.

“If they find a polyp, it’s either bigger than his – which is awesome – or it’s smaller than his, which means I have less of an opportunity to have cancer. Either way I win,” McElhenney, who created and starred in It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, said.

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“Rob and I both, we turned 45 this year,” Reynolds said in the video. “And you know, part of being this age is getting a colonoscopy. It’s a simple step that could literally – and I mean, literally – save your life.” It turns out that for Reynolds, that may have been the case. CBS Chief Medical Correspondent Jonathan LaPook, performed the procedure, which led to the discovery of a small polyp in the actor’s colon.

“You did such a good prep that I was able to find an extremely subtle polyp on the right side of your colon,” LaPook told Reynolds. “This was potentially life-saving for you. I’m not kidding. I’m not being overly dramatic. This is exactly why you do this.”

Kudos to both actors for de-stigmatizing a necessary medical procedure to help find and treat something preventable.