Blake Lively Gives Emotional Speech on Child Pornography

Actress Blake Lively, one of Variety’s Power of Women: New York honorees, got emotional during her speech Friday at the annual luncheon.

“I would do anything to protect them, I would literally die for them without a moment’s thought,” Lively said of her two daughters.

Introduced by actress Salma Hayek, Lively spoke of her work with Child Rescue Coalition, which seeks to eradicate child pornography from the Internet, as well as examples of the horrors of exploitation of trafficking of child pornography.

“I didn’t really know what child pornography as,” she told the audience. “I was afraid to ask what it was, as a mother, because it would be painful to hear. But I felt I had to ask, and I wanted to share with you. It is the truth, and I believe if we all knew this, we would dedicate much more of ourselves to stopping it.”