Olivia Wilde Returns With The Invite After Don’t Worry Darling Scandal

How Pamela Anderson Helped Olivia Wilde Amid Don’t Worry Darling Drama

Don’t be fooled by the film’s title—the Don’t Worry Darling press tour had plenty of cause for concern.

As Olivia Wilde’s third directorial project The Invite—which stars Wilde as well as Seth Rogen and Penélope Cruz—is set to premiere in select theaters June 26 before expanding to the rest of the country July 10, The O.C. alum has not avoided reflecting on the chaotic press tour and scandals that ailed her sophomore film.

“It was so strange,” Wilde admitted during a June 17 appearance on Call Her Daddy. “The world was also in such a weird place because it was COVID so everything was so topsy-turvy weird.”

The full, widescreen picture starts far before DWD hit theaters in September 2022. In 2020, Wilde announced she had cast the film—her follow up to her acclaimed 2019 directorial debut Booksmart—with leads Florence Pugh, Chris Pine and Shia LaBeouf.

At the time, Pugh expressed excitement for working with Wilde, as well as LaBeouf and Pine.

“@oliviawilde is my idol,” Pugh wrote in an April 2020 Instagram post, “and allowed me to be a part of this fecking incredible cast. Shia?!? Chris?!? *gasp no.3*.”

By August, though, LaBeouf had been replaced with Harry Styles, due to what was initially cited as scheduling conflicts. Months after they shot in the fall of 2020, Wilde confirmed a romance with Styles the following January.

This was about the time Wilde realized not all was right in Victory.

“People were f---ing pissed,” Wilde recalled of the duo’s romance during her Call Her Daddy appearance. “It’s almost like the happiness made them mad. I would go to shows and dance, and people were like, ‘Oh, b---h. You slut.' Oh, man. I don't know. It really did upset people, though.”

And while Wilde said she and Styles “existed in a little bubble” of joy amid the backlash, she hit a personal snag in April 2022. During a presentation for DWD at CinemaCon in Las Vegas, Wilde was served custody papers by ex Jason Sudeikis—dad to her son Otis, 12, and daughter Daisy, 9.

“It was incredibly traumatizing,” Wilde said. “It was like, I cannot f--king believe this is happening to me here.”

Indeed, even Tom Cruise found the situation unfair, with Wilde admitting he brought it up when she met him a few months later.

“He was like, ‘Hi, I'm Tom. F--kled up what happened to you in Vegas,’” Wilde recalled. “And I was like, ‘No!’”

Stephane Cardinale - Corbis/Corbis via Getty Images

Wilde later shared Sudeikis did not intend for her to be served so publicly, and the pair now peacefully co-parent. However, the debacle only added to the tension that continued to grow around DWD. In August 2022, as press for the film ramped up, Wilde insinuated she had fired LaBeouf, citing his “combative energy” in an interview with Variety.

Following the interview, LeBeouf refuted her claims, telling the outlet he instead “quit the film due to lack of rehearsal time,” and pointed to a video message Wilde had sent him that later leaked to the public in which she details a rift between LeBeouf and Pugh.

“You know, I think this might be a bit of a wake-up call for Miss Flo,” Wilde said in the video. “If she really commits, if she really puts her mind and heart into it at this point and if you guys can make peace—and I respect your point of view, I respect hers—but if you guys can do it, what do you think? Is there hope? Will you let me know?”

Wilde has continued to maintain there was no tension between her and Pugh, telling Vanity Fair she “didn’t feel the need to contribute” a response to the noise the video created. Meanwhile, the Little Women actress has never commented on the film’s scandals.

Stephane Cardinale - Corbis/Corbis via Getty Images

Less than a month after the video’s leak, Pugh raised eyebrows by skipping press engagements for the movie at Venice Film Festival, opting to only walk the red carpet, citing her busy schedule. During the same event, Pugh’s stylist Rebecca Corbin-Murray appeared to subtly address Wilde’s leaked video, captioning an Instagram post of her client’s look, “Miss Flo.”

And at the screening of the film itself, Styles and Pine were at the center of their own mini-drama—when eagle-eyed fans swore they saw the “Watermelon Sugar” singer spit on the Princess Diaries alum while taking his seat. Reps for both Styles and Pine shut down the speculation at the time, though Wilde admitted during her recent Call Her Daddy interview the cast found the entire ordeal truly bizarre.

As she admitted of so-called Spitgate, “It really looked like it.”

While Wilde considered the entire press tour for DWD a “pummeling” for her, she has a more lighthearted outlook on it four years later.

“It must have been that America was trying to avoid its own pain,” the House alum posited, acknowledging the entirety of the scandals took place amid the COVID pandemic. “Because that must have been an escape.”

Wilde’s clean slate—The Invite—is in select theaters now, but it's not the only film to add to your calendar. Keep reading for more upcoming 2026 releases…

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