Deciphering Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds’ Chat Before their Speech with Lip Reading

The tender exchange came ahead of a major moment for Lively, who was honored as one of TIME’s “Most Influential People of 2025.”

During her emotional speech at the event, Blake Lively touched upon deeper emotions linked to her legal disputes with her “It Ends With Us” co-star, Justin Baldoni. The speech seemed to carry an underlying tone that went beyond the surface.

According to expert Nicola Hickling, as reported by the Daily Mail, Reynolds shared an intimate moment with Lively before she took the stage to deliver her honoree speech. He leaned in closely and whispered words of encouragement and support to his wife, emphasizing the importance of her shining in that moment.

Lively gently placed her hand on her husband’s cheek and reportedly replied sweetly, “Kiss me one more time.”

In her address, Lively spoke about her “eternal optimist” mother, Willie Elain McAlpin, revealing that McAlpin was once the victim of “the worst crime someone can commit against a woman.”

She explained how her mother carried “raw and undeserved shame” for much of her life, and stressed the importance of speaking out, “If we name it, we change it.”

“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 revealed.

Without naming names, the “Gossip Girl” alum seemed to allude to her own battle, saying, “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.”

As The Blast previously reported, Lively filed a lawsuit against Baldoni in December 2024, accusing him of sexual harassment and orchestrating a smear campaign to destroy her reputation.

In response, Baldoni has denied the allegations and fired back with a $400 million countersuit against Lively, Reynolds, and their publicist Leslie Sloane, alleging defamation, extortion, and more.

In a fiery statement to Us Weekly, Lively’s lawyers claim Baldoni is trying to “tear down” the very laws designed to protect victims of harassment from being sued “into oblivion” by their alleged perpetrators.

“Mr. Baldoni has gone from monetizing a brand devoted to believing and supporting women to leading the charge to tear down the very law that protects women who come forward about sexual assault, harassment, and discrimination,” the statement read.

“California’s sexual harassment privilege, AB 933, was enacted to stop perpetrators of sexual harassment from abusing defamation lawsuits to sue their accusers into oblivion,” her legal team continued.

They added, “The chilling message scorched earth litigation sends to victims is stay silent or be destroyed.”