Hollywood actress Blake Lively has hinted at the ongoing legal battle with her It Ends With Us co-star Justin Baldoni in a public speech dedicated to her mother.
Gossip Girl star Lively, 37, who sought unspecified damages when she sued Baldoni in late December for alleged sexual harassment and retaliation, spoke during the 2025 Time100 summit and gala held in New York on Thursday.
The actress, who has been honoured as one of the 100 most influential people of 2025, said she has “so much to say about the last two years of my life”, adding “tonight is not the forum”.
Baldoni, who denies Lively’s allegations, countersued the actress and her husband, Deadpool actor Ryan Reynolds, for defamation and extortion in January.
It Ends With Us, adapted from the best-selling novel by Colleen Hoover, was directed by Baldoni, 41, who also stars in the movie as a love interest of Lively’s character, Lily Bloom.
Lively’s role in the movie was announced in 2023 and the film was released to cinemas in August 2024.
“Thank you so much for having me here tonight, to be an honoree amongst you all as well as those who’ve come before is surreal and deeply significant,” Lively said.
“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, and the many here tonight who either challenge the systems and/or who show us that magic exists on earth in their gifts, talents, bravery, art and life.
“So, tonight, I applaud each of you. It’s an interesting thing to be called influential. It’s most definitely an honour, but what does influence mean?
“By definition it’s: the capacity to have an effect on the character, development or behaviour of someone or something.
“To have an effect. That’s not only an honour, it’s a significant responsibility.
“How we use that matters. Who and what we stand up for, and what we stay silent about, what we monetise 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.”
The actress then paid tribute to her mother, Willie Elain McAlpin, who survived a violent assault years before the actress was born and said she was sharing the story at her mother’s “urging and unwavering bravery.”
“She is a survivor of the worst crimes someone can commit against a woman,” Lively told the crowd during her emotional toast.
She went on to explain that her mother had never received justice from the man responsible - someone she had known through work, who had tried to take her life while she was raising three young children.
Lively said her mother found strength in another woman’s story - a survivor who had spoken publicly about her own trauma on the radio. That moment of connection, Lively said, became a life-saving one.
“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,” said Lively.
“She was saved by a woman whose name she’ll never know. I am alive, and standing with you all here today, being honoured, 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.”
The Simple Favour star then quoted from another Time 100 honouree, Gisele Pelicot, and said: “It’s not for us to have shame, it’s for them.”
Ms Pelicot, 72, a retired logistics manager, was drugged by her ex-husband, Dominique Pelicot, to render her unconscious and then raped by him and dozens of other men, between 2011 and 2020.
She waived her right to anonymity as a survivor and said that shame should fall on her abusers, not her.
In Lively’s legal complaint, she accused Baldoni and the studio behind It Ends With Us of embarking on a “multi-tiered plan” to damage her reputation following a meeting in which she and her husband Reynolds addressed “repeated sexual harassment and other disturbing behaviour” by Baldoni and a producer on the movie.
Lively appeared at the event alongside her husband Reynolds, whom she shares four children with.
