Olivia Wilde Addresses CinemaCon Envelope Incident & Ex Jason Sudeikis – Deadline

In April, Deadline broke the news about the contents of the mysterious envelope delivered to Olivia Wilde onstage as she prepared to present her second film as a director, Don’t Worry Darling, to exhibitors and media at CinemaCon: It held legal papers from her ex Jason Sudeikis.

Deadline’s Anthony D’Alessandro at the time called it “an acerbic move to sabotage a star with legal papers during their shining moment on stage before 4,100 in the film industry.”

Wilde, it seems, feels the same.

“It was my workplace,” Wilde told Variety for its most recent cover story in reference to CinemaCon. “In any other workplace, it would be seen as an attack. It was really upsetting. It shouldn’t have been able to happen. There was a huge breach in security, which is really scary. The hurdles that you had to jump through to get into that room with several badges, plus special Covid tests that had to be taken days in advance, which gave you wristbands that were necessary to gain access to the event — this was something that required forethought.”

Sudeikis later said he had “no prior knowledge” of the plan. Separated since late 2020, Wilde and Sudeikis were engaged but never formally tied the knot. Evidently the envelope held papers related to custody of their two children.

As she opened the envelope onstage in front of thousands, Wilde displayed no reaction. In fact, she carried on with what was a very successful presentation. Even now, she seems more concerned about its effect on other people.

“The only people who suffered were my kids, because they’ll have to see that, and they shouldn’t ever have to know that happened. For me, it was appalling, but the victims were an 8- and 5-year-old, and that’s really sad. I chose to become an actress; I willingly walked into the spotlight. But it’s not something my children have asked for. And when my kids are dragged into it, it’s deeply painful,” she told Variety, before lamenting the focus the incident took away from the work.

“I hated that this nastiness distracted from the work of so many different people and the studio that I was up there representing. To try to sabotage that was really vicious. But I had a job to do; I’m not easily distracted. But, you know, sadly, it was not something that was entirely surprising to me. I mean, there’s a reason I left that relationship.”