"Never underestimate a woman’s ability to endure pain" - Blake Lively honors her mother in Time100 Gala speech

Actress and philanthropist Blake Lively was named one of Time Magazine’s 100 most influential people of 2025. Lively appeared alongside her husband, Ryan Reynolds, and her mother, Willie Elain McAlpin, at the Time100 Gala red carpet at the Jazz at Lincoln Center on April 24.

Blake Lively, who, according to the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, made a contribution alongside her husband in 2019 towards the organization, amounting to $1 million, used her platform to speak out about trauma, harassment, and honored the resilience of women who face and overcome obstacles. In a moving and poetic ode to female fortitude, Lively said:

“I know the superpower of female triumph though, I have touched it, shaken hands with it, I’m looking at it in this room here right now…We can make it to the end alive, physically or emotionally, and we will and we do, and we thrive. Even when it doesn’t feel possible. Even when we are in sharp pain. Never underestimate a woman’s ability to endure pain.”

Alongside Lively, Serena Williams, Simone Biles, and Kristen Bell, among others, were included on Time Magazine’s list of 100 most influential people of 2025, as per E! News.

Blake Lively’s moving tribute to her mother

During her speech, Lively also paid tribute to her mother, who she revealed was attacked by a colleague before Lively was born. After warning the audience that she would be speaking about trauma, Lively introduced her mother, saying:

“My life was influenced most by my mother, Willie Elain McAlpin, who’s here with me tonight, an eternal optimist who’s always leaving me messages, hoopin’ and hollerin’ sayin’, ‘life’s just a bowl of cherries.’”

Before narrating the story of the attack her mother survived, Lively revealed that it was her mother who insisted that the Time100 honoree share her story. Lively said:

"She wanted me to share with you that she is a survivor of the worst crimes someone can commit against a woman. I’ve watched her conceal her raw and undeserved shame my entire life, so, as her daughter, being asked to share this today is monumental. If we name it, we change it.”

She went on:

“My mom never got justice from her work acquaintance who attempted to take her life when she was the mother of 3 young kids—years before I was born. She has always credited her beating heart today with the story she heard from another woman in a similar circumstance, speaking on the radio as my mom drove home one day, entirely unaware of the future ahead in which she would call upon this critical moment to save her own life.”

Emphasizing the importance of kinship between women who suffer and survive violence, Lively added:

“The woman painfully and graphically shared how she escaped, and because of hearing that woman speak to her experience instead of shutting down in fear and unfair shame, my mom is alive today. She was saved by a woman whose name she’ll never know. I am alive, and standing with you all here today, being honored, because of a woman whose name I’ll never know. I am here, my mom is here, because that woman not only survived, but she told others how.”

Lively spoke emotionally about the toll that gender-based violence takes on everyone, saying:

“It’s a silent torch of womanhood that we come to know—a pact that privately we must show others how to survive, literally or spiritually. We don’t let our daughters know, but one day we break their hearts by letting them in on the secret that we kept from them as they pranced around in princess dresses: that they are not, and will likely never be safe, at work, at home, in a parking lot, in a medical office, online, in any space they inhabit. Physically, emotionally, professionally.”

Lively ended her impactful speech by expressing gratitude towards women who have invigorated her and her children’s lives, and also made sure to thank her husband for his kindness.

Blake Lively subtly referred to her ongoing legal conflict with Justin Baldoni

Blake Lively had filed a complaint with the California Civil Rights Department against her It Ends With Us co-star and director, Justin Baldoni, accusing the latter of sexual misconduct, according to Fox News. Later, the actress also filed a federal lawsuit, accusing Baldoni of s*xual harassment on the sets of the film, and also alleged that Baldoni and his PR team built a campaign to damage her reputation.

Following Lively’s lawsuit, Baldoni sued the actress and her husband for defamation, attempting to destroy his career, according to CNN.

Blake Lively hasn’t addressed the ongoing legal drama between her and Baldoni publicly yet; however, Variety noted that the actress gave a subtle ‘acknowledgement’ of the conflict between her and Baldoni.

Lively said:

“Who and what we stand up for... and what we stay silent about… What we monetize... versus what we actually live …matters. I have so much to say about the last two years of my life, but tonight is not the forum.”

While the fate of the lawsuits between Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni remains to be seen, Lively’s Time100 Gala speech was undoubtedly an enduring testament to women who survive trauma.