Last night, the stunning spectacle of the 2025 Victoria's Secret Fashion Show took place once again in New York City, a whirlwind of stunning wings, legendary lingerie, and the world's most renowned models. But behind the sheen and glitter, one tale of great resilience and collaboration pierced through the glamour, and one of remarkable character that eclipsed any sequin.
The surprise arrived, as it so often does, from her largest supporter. At the pink carpet, actor Dylan Sprouse, beaming with pride for his wife Barbara Palvin, revealed a jaw-dropping secret to host Zanna Roberts Rassi.
"I love you, baby. Break a leg tonight," he told her, handing out the timeless good luck with a note of destiny. "She did, in fact, break her foot four weeks ago, so she will be walking on a half-healed foot tonight."
The announcement was as relaxed as it was sensational. Four weeks. A half-healed foot. The Victoria's Secret runway. For anyone else, this mix would be unimaginable. For Barbara Palvin, it was business as usual.
A Support System Forged in Fun and Devotion
This isn't Dylan's first VS rodeo as a central support player for Barbara. During a now-legendary stunt from the 2024 show, he supported her from the stands by waving cardboard cutouts of their favorite pets. It was a move that captures their relationship in its entirety: loving, funny, and supportive.
This year, it was subtle but no less significant. Sprouse was also seen on the carpet sporting endometriosis awareness yellow ribbon pins. "That's my subtle gift this year to her," he says with a nod to an even more significant health struggle Barbara has just overcome.
The Unseen Battle: A Champion for Endometriosis Awareness
Just last August, Barbara courageously posted that she had surgery for endometriosis. In a sincere Instagram post, she outlined years of suffering in silence—fatigue, heavy and irregular flow, sleepless nights on the bathroom floor, and severe pain—symptoms she had wrongly assumed were simply her "normal."
Her path to diagnosis is an essential public service announcement. She shared that endometriosis frequently cannot be identified by routine gynecological exams, motivating women to go to specialists if they have similar symptoms. Post-surgery, she said she felt "finally" at ease and looking forward to a "new chapter."
This background makes her strutting up and down the runway last night even more remarkable. She wasn't merely modeling lingerie; she was illustrating the resilience of a woman who fought intangible, debilitating pain and came out stronger than ever before.
From Budapest Streets to International Angel
To comprehend the raw force of will that went into strutting up and down last night, one need look no further than her past. Found wandering the streets of Budapest at the tender age of 13, Barbara Palvin's story is one of perseverance. She was named Victoria's Secret Angel in 2019, the first-ever Hungarian to do so, and has for many years been noted not only for her "beautiful" appearance, which has drawn comparisons to a teenage Brooke Shields, but for her voluptuous shape that heralded a welcome change in the industry's standards of beauty.
This is a model who has strut her stuff for Prada, Louis Vuitton, and Chanel, and has graced the covers of hundreds of international magazines. The catwalk is her territory, somewhere she should be at her strongest. To step out onto that world stage, injured, took a different sort of power altogether.
As the lights went down on the 2025 show, Dylan Sprouse's last words to PEOPLE rang with a fresh, newfound significance: "Very proud of my angel tonight. The hard work you've put in, the diligence, the fact you had a broken foot. You're the hardest worker I know."
Last night, Barbara Palvin (or Barbara Sprouse, as everyone affectionately calls her in her private life) did more than give us a fashion moment. She gave us a lesson in how to handle pressure with grace. She walked for every woman who has ever struggled through pain, both visible and invisible, and showed us that real beauty isn't about the flawless walk—it's about the unbreakable spirit that gets you through it.
Image Credit: Instagram