Ilona Maher did not arrive at the 2025 ESPY Awards to blend in. On a night often claimed by glossy glamour and polished theatrics, the Olympic rugby standout made a different kind of entrance. One rooted in strength, honesty, and a deliberate rejection of prepackaged beauty ideals. Wearing a sharply tailored black gown that left her arms and shoulders exposed, Maher did not shy from the very features that once drew judgment. She did not pose to please a script, she stood to speak plainly. The gold accents and clean red lip framed a larger message. One she has carried far beyond red carpets.
Maher has long addressed the difficulties that come with having an athletic build in a culture that often prioritizes narrow femininity. Yet this year’s ESPYs felt less like a personal moment and more like an intentional declaration. Winning the ‘Best Breakthrough’ award, she used her spotlight to underscore the long-term toll of objectification. And how sport, not style, helped her find clarity.
Speaking with measured conviction, she said, “I think because I’ve struggled with it as well, and I mean, working at the SB Sport is what has helped me really learn to love my body, seeing what it’s capable of, other than just something to be objectified and looked at… strong, maybe not a traditional feminine quality, but it makes me feel so beautiful and so powerful being strong.” Her words did not float for effect. They landed with weight.
Well, Maher is not only working to reset beauty narratives. She is actively promoting the global platform of her sport. With conviction, she directed the audience’s attention to an event largely absent from mainstream conversation. “There’s a women’s rugby world cup this year,” she said. “Probably a lot of you didn’t know.” Her tone held neither bitterness nor surprise. Just quiet urgency. “The biggest event in women’s rugby… starting in about a month. Watch it. Tune in.” She admitted viewers may not grasp the flow of the game at first, or even the second time. But urged them to stay with it. And surely, her request was not casual, it was an appeal rooted in belief that curiosity, not perfection, drives support.
Though the evening centered on personal honors, Maher redirected the lens. Her celebration was not just about accolades or appearances, but about broadening recognition. Of different body types, of women in contact sports, of events that rarely find prime-time coverage. And in making that pivot, she offered a direction: to look past trends, past trophies, and toward the wider field where strength, persistence, and representation still ask for attention.
Ilona Maher’s ESPY speech honors the parents who built her foundation
Ilona Maher’s moment on the ESPY stage was not dominated by the glint of the trophy in her hand, but rather by the vivid clarity with which she recalled the steady presence of her parents in her sporting life. In a speech that could have easily leaned into celebration, she chose reflection instead. The rugby star, newly named Best Breakthrough Athlete of the Year, gave particular attention to the early sacrifices that shaped her strength long before stadium lights ever found her.
“I want to say, of course, thank you to my family,” Maher began, before turning her focus to the long drives and early mornings that marked her childhood. “My dad for driving hours to basketball practices and to taking me to early morning pitching clinics.” Her gratitude was delivered not in sweeping generalities, but with specificity that made each memory feel recent. These were not abstractions about support. They were hours logged, gasoline burned, alarm clocks set before dawn.
She continued, shifting from the practical to the emotional. “To my mom who always makes me feel worthy and seen and who’s always a ear ready to listen.” In that moment, it was evident Maher saw her mother not only as a supporter, but as a steward of her internal voice—someone who held steady when her daughter struggled to reconcile body image with belonging. Though she admitted with a half-smile that she “should probably stop telling [her] so much,” the comment landed not as a quip, but as a sign of closeness that has endured through change. Her closing words served as a universal invitation to occupy space unapologetically, but it was this quiet gratitude for home that gave her message its weight.
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