Ryan Reynolds Helps Reunite Woman With Priceless Stolen Teddy Bear

Ryan Reynolds has helped to reunite a woman in Canada with her irreplaceable stolen teddy bear.

Mara Soriano from Vancouver - Reynolds' home city - also had her iPad and her Nintendo Switch stolen from her while moving flat on Friday, but it was only the bear she cared so dearly about getting back.

That's because the Build-A-Bear contained a voice-box with a final recorded message from her mum, Marilyn Soriano, who died of cancer in June 2019, aged 53.

The message was recorded by Marilyn shortly before she moved into a hospice, but the bear vanished after Mara momentarily left it in a bag outside her new flat while moving in.

Speaking to CBC, she said: "It just makes me feel devastated. I'm absolutely crushed.

"At the hospice her voice was different. Much softer. Not the mum I grew up with. That bear is the last memory I have of her speaking in her normal voice.

"She said that she loved me and she was proud of me and that she'll always be with me."

Mara - who was born in the Philippines and moved to Toronto when she was nine - added: "It's a reminder of home. The bear has a message in it in Filipino. It says 'I love you,' but in our language. So it's very specific and very unique.

"I just really want to find my bear. That's all that I care about."

Reynolds got wind of the story and in a bid to reunite Mara and the bear offered a $5,000 (£3,849) reward to anyone who returned the bear - and it seemed to do the trick:

Mara said two people returned the bear to her on Tuesday night having taken it from the original thief.

After hearing the good news, Reynolds tweeted: "Thank you everyone who searched high and low. To the person who took the bear, thanks for keeping it safe. Vancouver is awesome."

Hopefully this happy ending has brightened up your day - and if it hasn't, then at least you now know for definite that you have no soul.

Topics: Awesome, Celebrity, Community

Jake Massey

Jake Massey is a journalist at LADbible. He graduated from Newcastle University, where he learnt a bit about media and a lot about living without heating. After spending a few years in Australia and New Zealand, Jake secured a role at an obscure radio station in Norwich, inadvertently becoming a real-life Alan Partridge in the process. From there, Jake became a reporter at the Eastern Daily Press. Jake enjoys playing football, listening to music and writing about himself in the third person.

@jakesmassey