Jennifer Coolidge motivates graduates in college’s 2025 commencement speech
Jennifer Coolidge brought her signature charm, honesty, and a dash of delightful chaos to Emerson College’s 2025 commencement ceremony on May 11—and the graduates couldn’t have asked for a more entertaining, and motivating send-off.
The 63-year-old actress returned to her old stomping grounds in Boston, where she once studied performing arts before dropping out to chase her Hollywood dreams.
And true to form, she lit up the stage with humor, heart, and a story about how she once cheated in an obstacle course.
Yes, really.
“I was so elated that I had won, and to me, it just meant that I was going to get the blue ribbon. And then the teacher came up to me and told me that I didn’t win the blue ribbon because I was disqualified,” she told the crowd, pausing for laughs.
“And it turns out, I had skipped all the obstacles. I just ran along the outside.”
The White Lotus star, who hilariously acknowledged her gay fanbase by saying she was “excited” to be “speaking with some very excited gay students,” shared that the obstacle course fiasco turned into years of teasing from her classmates.
It also became one of those childhood moments that nudged her toward a rich inner world—and eventually, a wildly successful acting career.
“I realized I was going to go the rest of my life as a joke. I was so uncomfortable with myself, I began to completely live in my head from that moment on,” she recalled.
But rather than let the embarrassment define her, Coolidge turned it into drive.
Fueled by a mix of fantasy and fierce self-belief (inspired in part by seeing Grace Kelly’s royal wedding in a magazine), she began to imagine wildly improbable dreams—and then pursue them.
“In retrospect, it was the one and only thing I really had going for me. I had this thing inside of me telling me that I could achieve anything, anything, in this world, and there was just nothing to back it up,” she said, to even more laughter.
Coolidge’s message was clear, and it wasn’t just about field day mishaps, it was about resilience, imagination, and championing your own story.
“When you find the thing that you want to do, I really want to highly recommend, just friggin’ go for it,” she urged the grads. “You really have to psych yourself up into believing absurd possibilities, and you have to believe that they are not absurd.”
She also opened up about being “overly sensitive” and how rejection and criticism could easily throw her off—until she decided to become her own cheerleader.
“Don’t listen to the people who mess up the real story that you’ve got going,” she said. “It is your ability to convince yourself you really can make it, because you really have to be your own champion.”
And with one last bit of Coolidge-style wisdom, she closed by circling back to that infamous first-grade race—because life, much like an obstacle course, isn’t always about staying within the cones.
“When it comes to the obstacle course of your life, you have to find your own path,” she said. “And you can’t perfectly plan it out from the beginning. Part of directing your life is just letting it unfold. So let it.”
