Tuesday’s CinemaCon presentation of Don’t Worry Darling generated swift excitement with a steamy exclusive trailer drop and writer-director Olivia Wilde’s likening her film to mind-bending hits like Inception and highlighting male lead Harry Styles’s performance as “a revelation.” But the buzz around the event turned meta when Wilde, while presenting live, was presented with a mysterious manilla folder, labeled “personal and confidential.”
Wilde said, “This is for me? Is this a script? Ok got it. Thank you.” She looked quickly inside the envelope, then, seemingly unrattled, continued to discuss her film without much hesitation. Now Deadline is reporting that Wilde had been served with legal documents on stage from her ex fiancée Jason Sudeikis, with whom she shares two children. Specifically, custody papers.
A source close to Sudeikis tells Vanity Fair, “Papers were drawn up to establish jurisdiction relating to the children of Ms. Wilde and Mr. Sudeikis. Mr. Sudeikis had no prior knowledge of the time or place that the envelope would have been delivered as this would solely be up to the process service company involved and he would never condone her being served in such an inappropriate manner.”
Wilde is currently in a romantic relationship with Styles, whom she met on the set of Don’t Worry Darling, and has been separated from Sudeikis since November 2020. Her engagement with Sudeikis lasted nearly seven years.
As Deadline notes, the CinemaCon scene had to have been carefully planned: Taking place at Caesars Place’s Colosseum in Las Vegas, any non-industry attendees of the event—as the person who served the papers presumably was—would need to purchase a badge for entry. Those involved in the production of CinemaCon reportedly told Deadline they were unaware as to how the person entered the building or who exactly they were.
New York Magazine writer Chris Lee subsequently reported on Twitter, “A well-placed CinemaCon source tells me whoever served her those documents had all the right credentials including the covid vax bracelet and ID lanyard that convention delegates have to wear.”
NATO managing director and head of CinemaCon Mitch Neuhauser told Variety, “To protect the integrity of our studio partners and the talent, we will reevaluate our security protocols. We will act accordingly because it’s the right thing to do. We want to do the safe, proper thing.”
Don’t Worry Darling, which also stars Florence Pugh, hits theaters September 23.
Representatives for Wilde did not immediately respond to Vanity Fair's request for comment.
This story has been updated.
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