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84-Year-Old Born on Leap Day Celebrates Her “21st” With First Legal Drink, Gifted From Ryan Reynolds

By Emma Taggart on March 6, 2020

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A post shared by Aviation American Gin (@aviationgin) on May 9, 2018 at 2:05pm PDT

Those who follow actor Ryan Reynolds on Twitter or Instagram know that he has a very funny presence on social media—and his latest piece of content is no exception. To promote his own brand of gin, Aviation American Gin, Reynolds created a hilarious commercial starring Arlene Manko, a lady who was born on February 29, 1936. Because her birthday lands on a leap day, Manko only has a birthday every 4 years. Technically, she just turned 21—the legal drinking age in the U.S.—so she celebrated the occasion with her first legal drink.

Technically, Manko was just 5 years old when she got married, but she has never had a “legal” drink in her life. Now that she’s reached 21, she’s ready to let her hair down. Naturally, Reynolds wanted Manko's first official alcoholic beverage to be special, so he treated her to a drink from his Aviation Gin Company. He made a video of the (actual) 84-year-old trying out the beverage and posted it on Instagram. “Following the rules and doing what you're told is important,” Manko says in the video. “But I'm ready to party.”

Manko is captured enjoying the first sips of her drink, surrounded with gifts and a cake topped with 21st birthday candles. By the end of the clip, she reveals that she didn’t know who Ryan Reynolds was prior to the campaign. Reynolds hilariously responds, “Ignore her, she's been drinking.”