How Olivia Wilde Says Tom Cruise Reacted to Her Being Served Onstage

How Olivia Wilde Says Tom Cruise Reacted to Her Being Served Onstage

Olivia Wilde is looking back at a time when she did really worry, darling.

Four years after she was served custody papers during a Don't Worry Darling CinemaCon presentation, she reflected on the viral moment and its aftermath, including how Tom Cruise reacted.

"I will never forget one of the most f--ked up things I went through, among so many, was that I was served papers on stage," Wilde recalled on the June 17 episode of Call Her Daddy. "Obviously, it was incredibly traumatizing. There’s so many elements to that."

While she can laugh about it now, the House alum admitted that she had to force herself to power through at the time. After all, Wilde was in the middle of her presentation when an unidentified woman stepped onto the stage with an envelope labeled "personal and confidential," which were later confirmed to be custody documents from her ex Jason Sudeikis, with whom she shares kids Otis, 12, and Daisy, 9.

"I get through it because, weirdly, as women we’re taught to muscle through the most insane experiences. I was like, 'Just finish your speech,'" she told Call Her Daddy host Alex Cooper. "[I] got through it, went backstage [and] completely dissolved into a puddle. But then, I thought no one saw it because there's no phones allowed in this event."

Despite the film showcase having a no phones policy, the moment blew up online—and even caught the eye of Cruise, to Wilde's dismay at the time.

"A couple months later, I had the chance [to meet] Tom Cruise," Wilde said. "And he was like, 'Hi, I'm Tom. F--ked up what happened to you in Vegas.' I was like, 'No!'"

While the Tron: Legacy actress accused Sudeikis of intentionally trying to "embarrass" and "threaten" her with the awkward onstage incident in a court filing a few months later, Wilde now believes that her former fiancé did not intend for her to get served onstage.

"Jason has told me that he did not know," Wilde told Cooper. "I need to believe that in order to continue."

tewart Cook/Getty Images for Warner Bros

And the Booksmart director acknowledged the role lawyers can potentially play, noting that they can be "super f--ked up and do f--ked up things."

"I think that people are never their best selves when they’re engaging in that kind of process," she explained. "It was so f--ked up in so many ways."

"I know that whether or not he knew it was going to happen," she added, "I know it really hurt him to see it happening to me."

These days, the duo—who were together from 2011 to 2020—have forged a strong co-parenting dynamic. Likewise, after unpacking how the very public moment impacted her in therapy, Wilde ultimately came out stronger.

As she put it, "Once you make it through things like that, you kind of feel like you can make it through anything."

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