Blake Lively and her husband, Ryan Reynolds, attended the 2025 TIME100 gala on Thursday, April 24, where the Another Simple Favor star was honored as one of TIME Magazine’s 100 Most Influential People of 2025.
Before Lively took the stage to give a controversial speech, she was given a pep talk from Reynolds, who held her hand as she appeared nervous.
According to lip reading expert Nicola Hickling, their intimate exchange began with the Deadpool actor telling his wife, “I should be there; I need to shine right now.”
He continued, “You need to understand what I am saying to you right now.”
Lively responded, “Kiss me one more time,” before the two pecked lips.
The actress then took the stage to deliver a speech about her mom, Willie Elain McAlpin, who was allegedly almost killed by a colleague before Lively was born.
“Who and what we stand up for, and what we stay silent about, what we monetize versus what we actually live, matters,” the Gossip Girl star said to the audience. “I have so much to say about the last two years of my life, but tonight is not the forum.”
“What I will speak to separately is the feeling of being a woman who has a voice today, and since I could speak, because of the pain, caution and fight of the many women who have paved the way, and the men who stood beside them,” she continued before calling her mom a “survivor of the worst crime someone can commit against someone.”
“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… 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,” Lively said.
The star’s speech also referenced her rift with her It Ends With Us costar Justin Baldoni, whom Lively accused of s—– harassment while on set of the 2024 film.