Olivia Wilde joined the “Call Her Daddy” podcast on her press tour for “The Invite” and expressed some regret over staying silent amid the tumultuous release of “Don’t Worry Darling” in 2022.
“I never felt more disconnected from the person that people were talking about. It was also very strange to see complete fiction traded as fact,” Wilde said about this period of her life. “I wanted to be like, ‘Can I just talk to people?’ Can I just go and say like, ‘That’s not true?’ And it was like, ‘No, that won’t help.’ And that was really hard… I felt I was working on behalf of hundreds of people [who worked on this movie]. I felt frustrated that I couldn’t defend myself but it was not about [me]… I think that my own attempt to be strong and to kind of like rise above it in a way came off as inauthentic.”
The rollout for “Don’t Worry Darling,” starring Florence Pugh, Chris Pine and Wilde’s then-boyfriend Harry Styles, was plagued with controversy from the start after Wilde was served custody papers while presenting the first footage from the movie at Cinema Con. Rumors then began swirling that Wilde and Pugh clashed on set over creative differences. Speculation over their alleged feud then exploded at the Venice Film Festival when they didn’t take photos together and Pugh appeared not even to look at Wilde.
The Venice Film Festival, which hosted the world premiere of “Don’t Worry Darling,” sent the movie’s release into a tailspin, not just for fueling rumors of a Wilde-Pugh clash but also for the viral moment in which Chris Pine appeared to spit on Styles. The pop star’s rep denied the action and called such claims a “complete fabrication,” but the damage was done.
“There was all this public madness, but my private life was very far from it,” Wilde said about the press tour. “And very, actually kind of wholesome and sweet. I had a lot of like real joy and love and happiness during that time. It was like the tornado was right outside the door and if you were inside, you were like, ‘It’s so nice,’ and then you’d open the door and a fucking like cow and a tractor would fly by.”
As Wilde sees it, the internet’s opinion of her was already negative before “Don’t Worry Darling” opened because “people were fucking pissed” that she was dating Styles. The two reportedly fell for each other during the making of the movie.
“I think that it also had a lot to do with the kind of parasocial relationship people had with, have with him, which is a burden that is very weighty and not something I envy and he carries it with grace,” Wilde said in regards to the backlash against her romance with Styles. “I think that is an enormous responsibility that all those stars have to carry that’s fucking impossible.”
Wilde and Styles had a 10-year age gap, which Wilde noted “really did upset people,” adding: “It was crazy. I don’t know how much I understand it yet. That’s one of the factors that I never really felt like, I fully, I don’t know.” She explained that her romance with the pop star was the “loveliest relationship” and “so sweet and so beautiful and really, actually, very domestic and kind and lovely.”
“I think that we existed in this, like, little bubble and the judgment never really got into that bubble, which was a miracle and testament to us making that happen,” Wilde added. “I think that people were mad. It’s almost like the happiness made them mad. I would go to shows and dance, and people were like, ‘You slut! How dare you dance and smile?’ It really did upset people, though.”
Watch Wilde’s full interview on “Call Her Daddy” in the video below.
