While actor and director Olivia Wilde was on stage promoting her latest film at CinemaCon on Tuesday 26 April, an envelope was handed to her by someone in the audience. And to her surprise, she was being served legal papers regarding the custody of her two children she shares with her ex-fiancé, Jason Sudeikis.
Olivia Wilde receives a ‘mysterious’ envelope on stage
CinemaCon 2022 took place from April 25 to April 28 at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas. Wilde attended the event to premiere the trailer of her highly anticipated film “Don’t Worry Darling”, which also stars Florence Pugh, Harry Styles, Chris Pine, Gemma Chan and KiKi Layne.
Wilde was reportedly halfway through her speech in which she explains that the film is inspired by mind-bending films such as “Inception”, “The Matrix” and “The Truman Show”.
But all of a sudden the director is briefly interrupted when an unidentified person approached the stage from the audience and simply slid an envelope across the stage.
“This is for me? Is this a script?”, she said, opening the envelope.
But when she opened the “personal and confidential” labelled envelope, she simply said “OK, got it. Thank you”.
It was later confirmed through a source from Sudeikis what the documents were for.
“Papers were drawn up to establish jurisdiction relating to the children of Ms Wilde and Mr Sudeikis,” the source told Variety.
Handled like a pro
Without skipping a beat Wilde composed herself and continued with her speech, while still holding the envelope. And after the trailer for “Don’t Worry Darling” played, the audience broke out in loud applause.
“It’s ambitious, but I think we made something pretty special,” Wilde said.
“The movie asks you to imagine a life where you have everything you could dream of. What would it take for you to give up that perfect life? What are you really willing to sacrifice to do what’s right?”
Jason Sudeikis was ‘unaware’ of how the papers would be served
Wilde (38) and Sudeikis (46) ended their relationship in 2020 after nearly 10 years together. The pair share a son, Otis (8) and Daisy (5) together.
Since their split, Wilde has entered a new relationship with singer and actor Harry Styles (28). And reportedly, Sudeikis is unhappy with Wilde travelling with Styles on his world tours when she is meant to be at home with their children.
However, as reported by Variety, the actor and comedian “had no prior knowledge” that the child custody documents would be handed to Wilde while she was on stage.
“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.”
CinemaCon reevaluating security measures
In the meantime, CinemaCon has revealed that they will be reevaluating their safety protocols as they have never had such an incident before.
“We have never in the history of the convention had an incident where a delegate has approached the stage who was not authorised to be there,” Mitch Neuhauser, CinemaCon’s managing director, said.