As the premiere of their cinematic collaboration approaches, the apparent feud between Olivia Wilde and Florence Pugh has only gotten hotter.
Olivia has tried to keep up appearances while Florence ducked her on social media, declined to be interviewed for her big Variety puff piece, and finally — most surprisingly — managed to get out of doing ANY PRESS AT ALL for Don’t Worry Darling!
Matthew Belloni is a former editor of The Hollywood Reporter, so the man has sources. And in his latest piece for Puck, he’s using them! Belloni claims to have gotten the dirt from multiple sources from the set of the hotly debated movie for Sunday night’s “What I’m Hearing” newsletter. And they’re corroborating the story from last month that Florence wasn’t happy about her director’s romance with Harry Styles! As you’ll recall, a source told Page Six in July:
“I can tell you for a fact that Flo seeing Olivia and Harry all over each other on set did not go down well as Olivia was still with Jason when she first hooked up with Harry.”
Belloni says he was told again and again the Lady Macbeth star wasn’t cool with Wilde “disappearing so often with her leading man.” Three separate sources told him it wasn’t just obvious the two were having an affair during shooting, it even caused delays when no one could find them! Yikes.
Related: Arcade Fire Singer Responds To Sexual Misconduct Allegations — And His Wife Reacts!
Witnesses even claimed to have seen Oscar nominee Florence and her director having a “tense” convo about it. It didn’t help that Olivia, per these sources, was a very tough director and ran a tight ship with everyone — except Harry.
This alleged favoritism was especially noteworthy when it came to COVID protocols. These are SO tough on sets right now. Heck, sometimes it feels like they’re the only place still taking the pandemic seriously. But keeping a movie insured means keeping everyone safe, including from the coronavirus. So one case means everyone has to isolate and the movie has to shut down. Nowhere more than on a movie production does the old “time is money” adage ring truer. So Olivia reportedly warned her cast and crew against going to any crowded events throughout the production — but then she and Harry were photographed attending a wedding together in January! Considering filming didn’t wrap on the movie until February, well… it’s no wonder, as Belloni was told, it appeared to those working on the film that when it came to all things Wildstyles, the rules were out the window.
As for Olivia’s other feud, the one with Shia LaBeouf, well, that blew up last week as he provided receipts proving she was lying about having fired him. And it only made friction between Olivia and “Miss Flo,” as she called her star in that video, more clear. Unfortunately for Miss Liv, Belloni says he knows for certain more leaks are coming that aren’t gonna do any favors for the Cowboys and Aliens star. However, Belloni notes — according to polling — awareness for Don’t Worry Darling has gone up from 17% to 21% amid all of this free, albeit icky, publicity. So maybe this all isn’t as much of an own-goal as it looks like after all? Then again, as the execs who put Morbius into theaters TWICE learned the hard way, people talking about your movie doesn’t necessarily equal people going to see your movie!
[Image via WENN/Avalon/Warner Bros/YouTube.]
