Pregnant actress Michelle Williams championed a "woman's right to choose" and implored her fellow women to vote as she was honoured at the 2020 Golden Globe Awards on Sunday.
The star won Best Performance by an Actress in a Limited Series or Motion Picture Made for Television for her role in Fosse/Verdon, and she used her moment on stage to shine a light on the power of a woman's vote as she addressed the crowd at The Beverly Hilton in Los Angeles.
Gesturing to her award, she said, "When you put this in someone's hands, you're acknowledging the choices that they make as an actor..., but you're also acknowledging the choices they make as a person: the education they pursue, the training they sought, the hours they put in.
"I'm grateful for the acknowledgement of the choices I have made but I'm also grateful to have lived in a moment in our society where choice exists because as women and as girls, things can happen to our bodies that are not our choice...
Confirming her pregnancy news, Williams continued: "I wouldn't have been able to do this without employing a woman's right to choose: to choose when to have my children, and with whom, when I felt supported and able to support our lives knowing, as all mothers know, that the scales must and will tip towards our children."
She then encouraged American women of all backgrounds to help protect that right by heading to the polls in 2020.
"Now, I know my choices might look different than yours, but thank God, or whomever you pray to, that we live in a country founded on the principle that I am free to live by my faith, and you are free to live by yours," the 39-year-old commented. "So women, 18 to 118, when it is time to vote, please do so in your own self-interest. It's what men have been doing for years... which is why the world looks so much like them, but don't forget we are the largest voting body in the country, let's make it look more like us."
Signing off with another nod to her personal life, the typically-private star gave a shout out to her new fiance, her Fosse/Verdon director Thomas Kail, and her 14-year-old daughter Matilda, from her previous relationship with the late Heath Ledger.
"Tom and Matilda, I can't wait to come home to you," she smiled.
Williams's powerful speech won her applause from the likes of Reese Witherspoon, Kerry Washington, Christina Applegate, and her best friend Busy Philipps, who was spotted wiping away tears of pride as she cheered on her pal from the audience.
Philipps previously stunned fans on her now-cancelled late night talk show, Busy Tonight, last May by revealing she needed an abortion after falling pregnant at 15, as she condemned the introduction of heavily restrictive legislation in states such as Georgia, Ohio, and Alabama.
She is now married to director Marc Silverstein, with whom she shares two daughters.
