Wait, Is Ryan Gosling Really Singing on “I’m Just Ken”?

It’s Barbie weekend, everyone, and as such, I hope you all are SPRINTING to the theater to see this cinematic masterpiece. I’ve seen it twice and I can say it’s just as good on the second round. But as I left the theater, one question was nagging at me, and I desperately needed an answer. As you might know if you’ve been on the internet in the last few weeks, there’s a song in the movie called “I’m Just Ken,” and without spoiling, it comes at a very pivotal moment. Ryan Gosling performs it in the movie, but I needed to know: is he actually singing on the track? Here’s what I found out.

Not only does he sing the song, but he *asked* to sing it.

According to Vanity Fair, Mark Ronson, who worked on the music for the movie, wrote the song without knowing if Ryan would sing it himself. But when Ryan heard it, he liked it enough that he volunteered. So Mark flew to London to record Ryan on the song. And Ryan knocked it out of the park, as you can tell by listening to the song now.

“He really got [that] it had to walk this line of not being funny or parody,” he says. “But obviously, the song is also kind of ridiculous at times. So he was really amazing, and when he really did start hitting the big notes, I was like, this dude is a vocal powerhouse!”

If you need proof of that vocal prowess, just give the song another listen:

It probably shouldn’t come as a surprise that Ryan can sing considering he was in a whole musical called La La Land, but hey, autotune exists! So it’s fun to know he was really singing. This is now officially the song of the summer.

BUY TICKETS TO BARBIE

Senior Entertainment Editor

Emma Baty is the Senior Entertainment Editor at Cosmopolitan, where she shapes TV, movie and music coverage, writes celebrity profiles, edits stories across both print and digital, and generally obsesses over all things pop culture. Prior to this role, she worked as Cosmopolitan.com’s News Writer, writing celebrity news stories daily and covering live events like the Oscars. Originally from Grand Haven, Michigan, she currently lives in Brooklyn.