“Never underestimate a woman’s ability to endure pain,” said Lively

Blake Lively attends the 2025 Time100 Gala. Photo: Taylor Hill/FilmMagic

Blake Lively alluded to her legal battle with Justin Baldoni at the TIME100 gala.

The actress, who was named one of TIME magazine’s 100 most influential people, spoke for roughly six minutes at the annual event held at Jazz at the Lincoln Center in New York City on Thursday, April 24.

During her speech, Lively, 37, said it was “surreal and deeply significant” to be an honoree “in a time where the most valuable currency seems to be anger, it feels like an act of defiance to commune and celebrate all the good that is alive in the world.”

Lively said being called “influential” was “a significant responsibility,” adding, “How we use that matters. 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,” she said, opting to speak about “the feeling of being a woman who has a voice today.”

Lively said her life was “influenced most” by her mother, Willie Elaine McAlpin, who she said was the “survivor of the worst crime someone can commit against a woman.”

Blake Lively attends the 2025 Time100 Gala. 

Cindy Ord/Getty 

“My mom never got justice from her work acquaintance who attempted to take her life when she was the mother of three young kids years before I was born,” she said.

The honoree said her mom credited a woman whom she heard speaking about a “similar circumstance” on the radio for saving her life.

“The woman painfully and graphically shared how she escaped. And because of hearing that woman speak about 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,” said Lively.

Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds attend the 2025 Time100 Gala. 

Cindy Ord/Getty

She referred to womanhood as 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,” she said.

Lively referred to the “superpower of female triumph” as a “basic human right,” adding, “Never underestimate a woman’s ability to endure pain.”

Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni in It Ends With Us. 

Sony Pictures Entertainment

She ended her speech by thanking “every man, including my sweet husband [Ryan Reynolds], who are kind and good when no one is watching.”

“And to all the communities across the gender, age, political, geographical, and racial spectrum who fight every day just to be safe, I see you,” she said.

Lively’s “last two years” remark alludes to the ongoing legal battle she has with her It Ends With Us costar and director, Justin Baldoni. Production on the Colleen Hoover adaptation began in May 2023. It was released in August 2024.

In December 2024, Lively sued Baldoni alleging sexual harassment and a retaliatory smear campaign. Among others named in the suit were Baldoni’s production company, Wayfarer Studios.

Baldoni denied the allegations and countersued Lively, Reynolds, and others such as their publicist Leslie Sloane and Sloane’s PR firm Vision PR, Inc., for $400 million, alleging civil extortion, defamation and more.

A trial date set has been scheduled for March 2026.