There’s been an abundance of drama surrounding the upcoming film Don’t Worry Drama, so here’s a complete breakdown.
Earlier this week no one could stop talking about how Harry Styles seemingly spat on Chris Pine during the premiere screening of Don’t Worry Darling at the 79th Venice International Film Festival; an allegation that Chris Pine’s representative quickly shut down.
It’s not the only drama to arise out of Don’t Worry Darling though; in fact, it was relatively minor compared to other controversies surrounding the film and its release. And so, for your guilty pleasure, we’ve broken down every Don’t Worry Darling drama that’s gone down so far.
The Olivia Wilde, Jason Sudeikis and Harry Styles love triangle
Firstly, Olivia Wilde, who directed and stars in Don’t Worry Darling, had been dating Jason Sudeikis – best known for his role in Ted Lasso – for seven years before filming for Don’t Worry Darling began in 2020.
Wilde and Sudeikis share two children together and were engaged; however, in November 2020, news broke that the couple had split. Rumours quickly emerged at the time that Wilde had had an affair with Styles on the Don’t Worry Darling set and that’s allegedly why Sudeikis left her.
Wilde herself has denied these claims though; in fact, she recently told Vanity Fair, “The complete horseass idea that I left Jason [Sudeikis] for Harry [Styles] is completely inaccurate. Our relationship was over long before I met Harry [Styles].”
However, despite Wilde’s comments, many still believe that Wilde did cheat on Sudeikis with Styles and maintain that’s why she was served custody papers on behalf of Sudeikis earlier this year while she was onstage at CinemaCon, talking about Don’t Worry Darling.
Sudeikis has denied that he planned for Wilde to be served with the papers while she was giving a public presentation about Don’t Worry Darling. But Wilde suspects he did it to deliberately “disrupt” her. Wilde also said the whole custody papers incident “deeply saddened” and “disturbed” her.
Ultimately, no matter who or what you believe, the whole love triangle between Wilde, Sudeikis and Styles has created an undeniable amount of drama surrounding the upcoming release of Don’t Worry Darling.
The Alleged Olivia Wilde and Florence Pugh feud
Secondly, there’s allegedly some beef between Wilde and Florence Pugh, who plays the leading role in Don’t Worry Darling. Earlier this year, internet sleuths were quick to notice that Pugh rarely posted about Don’t Worry Darling on her social media accounts and wasn’t doing much promotion for the film, despite being the lead. After this discovery, many began to suspect that Wilde and Pugh were feuding.
Then in an interview with Harper’s Bazaar, Pugh said about the film, “When it’s reduced to your sex scenes, or to watch the most famous man in the world [Styles, who plays Pugh’s husband in the film] go down on someone, it’s not why we do it. It’s not why I’m in this industry,” which seemingly contradicts most things said about Don’t Worry Darling by Wilde – since 2021, Wilde has been vocal about how she wants this film to explore female pleasure onscreen.
Furthermore, rumours have circulated that Pugh was uncomfortable on the Don’t Worry Darling set because of Wilde and Styles’ romance and because she was allegedly paid much less than Styles – of course, these rumours are yet to be confirmed (or denied!) by a reliable source.
Pugh then skipped Don’t Worry Darling’s Venice Film Festival press conference, which furthered the rumours of Pugh and Wilde feuding – although, a representative said this was because Pugh had tight scheduling conflicts. Although, when Pugh did arrive in Venice and walked the red carpet as well as attended the Don’t Worry Darling premiere, she never directly interacted with Wilde.
Ramin Setoodeh, the editor of Variety, even claims that Pugh ‘refused’ to make eye contact with Wilde during the four-minute standing ovation Don’t Worry Darling received after its premiere screening at the Venice Film Festival. Yikes.
Shia LaBeouf – fired or quit?
Finally, Styles was not originally cast as the leading man in Don’t Worry Darling; Shia LaBeouf was. LaBeouf left the project shortly after being cast in 2020 (at the time, it was reported that he left because of scheduling conflicts) and was quickly replaced by Styles.
And it’s important to note that all this happened before LaBeouf’s ex, British singer/songwriter FKA Twigs, accused him of sexual battery, assault and infliction of emotional distress in January 2021.
Then, in an interview with Variety, that was published on August 24th of this year, Wilde revealed she had actually fired LaBeouf because he didn’t have the right “ethos” or “energy” for Don’t Worry Darling. Wilde went on to talk about Twigs’ allegations against LaBeouf in relation to Don’t Worry Darling and said,
“…For our film, what we really needed was an energy that was incredibly supportive. Particularly with a movie like this, I knew that I was going to be asking Florence [Pugh] to be in very vulnerable situations, and my priority was making her feel safe and making her feel supported.”
Olivia Wilde
This is where things get complicated, though. Days later, LaBeouf completely disputed Wilde’s claim that she fired him and said that he quit because he believed there wasn’t enough rehearsal time. LaBeouf even shared with Variety emails and screenshots of messages discussing his decision to quit, which he claims were sent to Wilde.
In one of these emails, LaBeouf wrote allegedly to Wilde, “You and I both know the reasons for my exit. I quit your film because your actors and I couldn’t find time to rehearse.” LaBeouf also shared video footage that he claims Wilde sent him after he quit.
In the footage (that has now leaked publicly), Wilde says, “I feel like I’m not ready to give up on this yet, and I, too, am heartbroken and I want to figure this out.” Wilde then alludes to a potential rift between LaBeouf and Pugh, who Wilde calls “Miss Flo” in the footage – which you can watch below.
Wilde has apparently doubled down though, despite all of LaBeouf’s ‘receipts’. In an interview with Vanity Fair, which was published after LaBeouf disputed being fired from Don’t Worry Darling (but likely was conducted before LaBeouf’s dispute), Wilde again said she fired LaBeouf – this time because Pugh was allegedly uncomfortable with LaBeouf’s behaviour on set. Drama, drama, drama…
Notable mentions
We have to mention Pine completely disassociating during an interview at the Venice Film Festival when Styles described Don’t Worry Darling with the simple sentence, “The movie, is like, it feels like a movie.” – although that was less ~drama~ and more of a hilarious moment. Maybe it’s what precipitated the spitting?
We also had Styles joke on stage at a gig at Madison Square Garden in New York that “I just popped very quickly to Venice to spit on Chris Pine,” making light of the whole ‘Spitgate’ situation.
We also have to mention Styles kissing Don’t Worry Darling co-star Nick Kroll during the film’s premiere – but again, that wasn’t really drama… It was honestly just iconic.
Don’t Worry Darling will hit cinemas on the 5th of October.
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