Blake Lively revealed during her 2025 Time100 Gala speech that her mother, Willie Elaine McAlpin, survived a violent attack by a work acquaintance years before Blake was born. This attack was described by Lively as "the worst crime that someone can commit against a woman," implying a severe assault that nearly took her mother's life. Despite enduring this trauma, her mother never received justice for the attack. Lively credited her mother's survival to hearing another woman’s story of escape on the radio, which gave her mother the strength to survive and later share her experience to help others. Lively emphasized the importance of women sharing their stories to break silence and shame, calling it a "silent torch of womanhood" and a "superpower of female triumph"
