Saying her piece. Olivia Wilde responded to Florence Pugh feud rumors after reports she cheated with Harry Styles on Jason Sudeikis.
Wilde and Styles started dating publicly in January 2021 after meeting on the set of the upcoming movie, Don’t Worry Darling—which Wilde directed and Styles starred in—in 2020. The relationship came two months after news broke that Wilde and Sudeiks, who started dating in 2011 and share kids Otis, 8, and Daisy, 5—had split after 10 years together. A source told Page Six in July 2022 that Pugh—who stars with Styles in Don’t Worry Darling—was “uncomfortable” with how Wilde and Styles‘ relationship started. The insider also claimed that Wilde was “still with” Sudeikis when she first “hooked up” with Styles. “I can tell you for a fact that Flo seeing Olivia and Harry all over each other on set did not go down well as Olivia was still with Jason when she first hooked up with Harry,” the insider said. “Jason and the kids visited Olivia on set at the beginning a few times, so I think this all made people feel a little uncomfortable.”
The report came after fans noticed Pugh’s lack of social media posts around Don’t Worry Darling. “The way Florence Pugh has yet to post about don’t worry darling even though there are two trailers out for it and yet she’ll post about every single other project that she’s doing right now like what did Olivia Wilde do ????” a Twitter user tweeted in July 2022 when Pugh didn’t share the trailer for the movie unlike Wilde and the rest of the cast. Another source told Page Six at the time that Pugh’s lack of posts for Don’t Worry Darling were due to a schedule conflict with her upcoming 2023 movie, Oppenheimer, and not a jab at Wilde. “I heard she was already scheduled to post [about ‘Oppenheimer’] that day for some specific reason, it had nothing to do with a response to Olivia,” the insider said.
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In an interview with Variety in August 2022, Wilde responded to rumors of a feud between her and Pugh, as well as reports that Styles was paid three times more than Pugh for Don’t Worry Darling. “There has been a lot out there that I largely don’t pay attention to,” she said. “But the absurdity of invented clickbait and subsequent reaction regarding a nonexistent pay disparity between our lead and supporting actors really upset me. I’m a woman who has been in this business for over 20 years, and it’s something that I have fought for myself and others, especially being a director. There is absolutely no validity to those claims.”
In the same interview, Wilde also revealed that she was originally going to play the lead character, Alice, in the movie but cast Pugh instead after seeing her performance in 2019’s Midsommar. “I had been blown the fuck away by her,” Wilde said. “I loved the film, but I loved her. I was just like, ‘Well, she’s extraordinary. She’s clearly the most exciting young actress working today.’” She continued, “There was something about the youthfulness, the innocence, that really made sense for the story. If I was Alice, I was like, ‘Well, I’m going to be with a Jack who’s my age or older, and now we’re in a different age bracket.’”
After Page Six’s report, sources close to Wilde and Styles denied that the couple were anything but professional on the set of Don’t Worry Darling. “Olivia was super professional — both she and Harry were. We were all surprised to hear that they were an item and didn’t even realize they were a couple until the news was out publicly,” one source said. Another source also confirmed that Wilde and Styles’ relationship wasn’t public to the crew and cast. “We were filming the movie at the height of COVID. Everyone had a job to do and we were focused on that. I certainly didn’t see Harry and Olivia all over each other!” the insider said.
Don’t Worry Darling premieres in theaters on September 23, 2022.
Image: Getty Images. Design: Sasha Purdy/STYLECASTER.