Actor and director Olivia Wilde was supposed to be at the annual film industry trade show CinemaCon to introduce her new movie Don't Worry Darling to thousands of Hollywood colleagues and press.
Instead, she got served with custody papers—onstage.
While Wilde was on the conference's stage at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas a man suddenly appeared beside her with an envelope, immediately sending tongues wagging as attendees suspected she'd just been served with a lawsuit, as seen below.
Wilde initially seemed to think it was an unsolicited and poorly timed screenplay submission, momentarily thrown off course from her Don't Worry Darling presentation.
Glancing down at the envelope marked "Personal and Confidential," she said:
"This is for me, right? Very mysterious. I’m going to open it now. Is this a script?"
After opening the envelope and glancing at its contents she simply said, "Ok got it, thank you" before gamely continuing on with her presentation like a true professional.
"OK, got it. Thank you."
As industry news site Deadline quickly figured out, the envelope contained custody papers from Wilde's former partner, Ted Lasso actor Jason Sudeikis.
Wilde and Sudeikis never married but have two children together, and split in late 2020. Wilde has since been dating her Don't Worry Darling star Harry Styles.
The film, Wilde's second feature after her 2019 directorial debut Booksmart, is a psychological thriller starring Styles, Florence Pugh, Chris Pine, KiKi Layne, Nick Kroll and Gemma Chan.
The film is said to have been one of the most hotly anticipated films to be presented at CinemaCon, formerly known as ShoWest, the entertainment industry's largest gathering of movie theater owners and executives each year.
But the "mystery envelope" quickly overshadowed any other news from CinemaCon--especially since Wilde's relationship with Styles is rumored to have been the cause of her split with Sudeikis.
And, naturally, Twitter immediately gave the incident the meme treatment.
As for Sudeikis, a source from his camp told Variety he had no prior knowledge Wilde would be served in "such an inappropriate manner," pointing out that the location at which the papers were served is determined by the process servers charged with contacting Wilde.
u/Duskymoonlight/Reddit
u/Duskymoonlight/Reddit