*taps mic, Sinead O’Connor voice*
It’s been three whole months and about 10 days, since I wrote this Substack page *slow zoom in, a single tear falls* It’s been a minute, so hello! Suffice to say it has been a very tumultuous few months. We’ll get into the details later, but I’ve had to take some time for, I don’t know, whatever we’re calling “self-care” now that the general baseline day-to-day is fighting for basic survival while society collapses and the very Earth herself is like “If you all don’t get the fuck off my shit I swear to fucking God.”
During such time, I’ve been toiling on ~*the piece*~ that I wanted to return to this newsletter with for quite a while now, but sometimes the Lord has other missions for His most precious servants, which I must assume is why it came to my attention yesterday that some of you do not know what is going on with Olivia Wilde’s sophomore directorial outing Don’t Worry Darling!
By which I mean I posted about it on Instagram yesterday and one (1) person DM’d me, “LOL what is even going on with this movie?” which I took as a directive to cancel all appointments and break my Substack silence by spending the entire day screaming about it, because it is, to be perfectly frank, AN EMERGENCY. I haven’t felt this alive since I was still in the bloom of youth and had hope for the future back in, like, I don’t know, the brief period in 2004 when we thought John Kerry would actually beat George W. Bush! I want that joy for you too, so let’s get into it.
Remember how we used to talk about Real Housewives on here? Imagine the sort of drama that would form an entire season’s storyline on one of those shows except it’s about actual movie stars in actual A-list films and not delusional assholes with “cabaret” tours. You know what I mean? That’s what we got here.
Let us begin with the most recent chapter in this saga and work our way backward. If you were anywhere near social media over the past 48ish hours, your feed was likely composed entirely of high-decibel gay shrieking over this:
That is, of course, one Florence Pugh, of the Oxford, United Kingdom Pughs, the Oscar-nominated star of Little Women and Midsommar, and the heroine of our story today. She is seen here in Venice, Italy on the red carpet of its annual festival of the motion pictures, stopping time and altering physics while people fucking panic over this look because—well A of all, it’s really good, I mean look at her. But two, and more importantly, like all good art, the real crux of the thing is the context and subtext.
To that end, I’d like you to put on your thinking caps and reach back to the 1990s. Remember when Prince Charles went on television and admitted he was slipping Camilla the ol’ Mountbatten family scepter on the side and made Princess Diana look like whatever the female version of a cuckold is (cuckoldress? cuckoldtrix?), so she rocked up to her next event in the infamous Revenge Dress™?
The subtext, of course, was “FUCK YOU AND THE CLIQUE YOU REP” delivered in front of the entire universe so as to make Charles look like a clown. With a horse face. A horse-faced clown.
Ms. Pugh’s red-carpet turn in Venice has a similar context and subtext. To whompst is her message directed, you ask? America’s Next Top Feminist Director, one Miss Olivia Wilde. And that’s not shade, Booksmart, Wilde’s directorial debut, was basically perfect? I mean that was a great movie! No notes! So obviously, for her follow-up, she has to up the ante, right? Prove she’s a ~*serious filmmaker*~. And this is where our story begins.
In 2019 Wilde signed on to direct Don’t Worry Darling, a sexy period psychological thriller, and set about assembling a cast that would have anyone with any taste foaming at the mouth. Let us examine them, the Dramatis Personae in today’s tale.
The aforementioned Ms. Pugh, a goddamn revelation who should be in fucking everything, in the leading role, including the male ones, until the end of time.
Chris Pine, who is apparently in his greasy 90s Brad Pitt era and respectfully–respectfully!--my ass is open and ready.
The lovely Gemma Chan, of Crazy Rich Asians fame.
Nick Kroll, an actual genius (try to tell me Kroll Show isn’t the funniest shit you’ve ever seen and I will bash in your fucking teeth with a rolling pin I don’t even care anymore) who provides this film with one of my personal favorite things, which is when comedians switch genres and go Serious Actor™. Like come on, how can you not be excited to see Fabrice Fabrice, the Name So Nice You Gotta Say It Again, do a Jim Carrey-style pivot into a prestige picture?
And in the male lead of Don’t Worry Darling, we had Shia LaBeouf.
NOW BEFORE YOU FUCKING START cuz I know how you girls like to tussle, he was cast before the allegations surfaced. Obviously we already knew he was a problem (remember when he like drunkenly took over the Walgreens on Chicago’s Michigan Avenue? Ugh halcyon days, that’s when celebrity scandals were celebrity scandals!). But we didn’t know the level of the problem when this was all announced in 2019, and that is important to our story.
So okay! Throw in genius cinematographer Matthew Libatique and Ms. Wilde’s directorial follow-up is gonna be a fucking barnstormer, right? If I could’ve forked over my money in advance just on the announcements alone I would have.
Well! Then the film gets under way. And the first thing that happens is Shia LaBeouf departs the film due to “scheduling conflicts.” He is quickly replaced by both Harry Styles and his perfect jawline, who will tag-team the role like the Olsen twins did with Michelle Tanner.
Styles casting is a bit random, right? All he’d done prior was a bit part in Dunkirk, so what gives? Well as you likely know by now, Wilde and Styles became an item a few months after his casting. Which is convenient! I am not alleging anything! They supposedly took up with each other well after he was already hired! But, like, first of all, tale as old as time song as old as rhyme, and two of all Olivia Wilde and baby-daddy Jason Sudeikis announced their split barely a month before Wilde and Styles made their first public appearance soooooooo lolololol nevermind bitch I am definitely alleging something! And like who cares, they’re adults and can do what they want, but it gives the whole thing the faintest whiff of messy, right?
Around this same time things get even messier when LaBeouf is served a lawsuit by his former partner FKA Twigs. She alleges horrific abuse by LaBeouf during their brief partnership, allegations that LaBeouf does not deny and attributes to his substance abuse issues. (He is now in recovery, for what that’s worth.)
So! If you had to guess what actually happened with Don’t Worry Darling here, what would you assume? Right, of course: LaBeouf was fired because Olivia found out he’s an abuser, and as a proud and outspoken feminist who has positioned herself as part of the post-#MeToo path forward for Hollywood, she cannot allow LaBeouf to move forward given the allegations, especially given the intimate sex scenes he’d be in with Florence Pugh. So, LaBeouf out, Styles in.
And that is basically the narrative that settled in for close to two years, beginning with rumors from “sources close to the production” in December 2020. But at least, to quote Valerie Cherish, “now it can be about healing,” right?
Lol bitch you thought!
DWD goes into actual production, and things immediately get messier. Rumors begin swirling that Pugh and Wilde aren’t getting along, Wilde is rumored to have refrained from hiring an intimacy coordinator for the sex scenes between Styles and Pugh contra her aforementioned self-positioning as one of the leaders of Hollywood’s new feminist approach to the business of filmmaking, and then, speaking of Jason Sudeikis, back in April at CinemaCon (fka ShoWest) Wilde gets served with custody papers from Sudeikis on stage while presenting the film that stars the boyfriend with whom she allegedly cheated on her baby-daddy.
No offense but respectfully and with all due deference this is what is known in cultures across the world as a goddamn mess! And while there is no such thing as bad publicity, this kind of publicity is of course very off-brand and off-key for Wilde, and makes DWD look like a big ol’ boondoggle. There is, of course, a conversation to be had here about how much more harshly women leaders are judged than men, but also, like, a mess is a mess! Like I’m sorry but like!!!
And then we get to last month.
In advance of Don’t Worry Darling’s big Venice debut, Wilde is profiled in Variety, in which the trade paper reiterates the already long-rumored story that LaBeouf was fired. But now Wilde adds more details.
She implies his firing was because Pugh insisted upon it, saying Pugh was uncomfortable working with LaBeouf, especially given his “combative” Method-acting style, and that she fired him to “protect” Pugh from having to do sexual scenes with him. She then cited FKA Twigs’ allegations as confirmation she did the right thing, before adding that she holds nothing against LaBeouf, because he has made efforts at bettering himself and she believes in “restorative justice.”
Now if you’re a certain type of person you’ll find that last bit disgusting and think they should both be canceled. I am not that type, for the record, and this is not an Olivia Wilde hit piece. Abusers aren’t born, they’re made, a thing I know from experience as an “abuse survivor” (*jack-off motion*), and I think most people are worthy of redemption if they are willing to own up to what they’ve done and change. LaBeouf seems to have actively pursued that if his public statements are to be believed.
That said, I also hope FKA Twigs wins her lawsuit. Two things can be true at once, and nuance still exists even though social media flattens it and our news media runs with those flattened narratives every chance it gets so that algorithms will serve them to the people they’ll outrage and then you’ll click on it and look at their advertisements, and I think we’d all be better off as a culture and a society if we gave that some thought.
I say all this because Wilde’s narrative and approach to this very delicate, nuanced, multi-faceted situation tracked for me. But of course, here’s the corollary: If you’re going to court a persona that positions you as a moral authority on social justice and feminism, and especially if you’re going to use a woman’s harrowing abuse as the justification for your actions, well…you gotta come correct, right? And well…
*steps down off magnanimous intellectual soapbox and picks up gay shrieking megaphone*
It turns out Wilde’s whole narrative was *Maury Povich voice* A LIE!!!
After the Variety piece dropped last month, LaBeouf popped up out of obscurity and went full Real Housewives of Atlanta on the narrative that he’d been fired from Don’t Worry Darling.
LaBeouf sent Variety an open letter to Wilde in which he explained he was not fired but rather resigned, and then called out Wilde for going with the firing narrative because it makes for good publicity for her film and her feminist brand in light of his case with FKA Twigs (the validity of which he again acknowledged).
I cannot reiterate enough that I’m not defending LaBeouf, nor am I making light of FKA Twigs’ allegations, nor am I trying to tear down Olivia Wilde.
But my good, best bitch: Did I tell you this was some Real Housewives shit or did I tell you this was some Real Housewives shit?! LaBeouf actually went to the leading entertainment industry trade paper and was like “Cute attempt to market your movie by leveraging my ex’s trauma but you can’t fire me cuz I QUIT!”
Whew!!!! So now, of course, a backlash ensues: LaBeouf’s abusive ass is accusing a woman of lying, what a gaslighting pig, etc so on and so forth, right? Except it turns out this is less like an episode of Real Housewives of Atlanta and more like an episode of Real Housewives of Beverly Hills because LaBeouf was out here waving around receipts like Lisa Rinna holding up printed-out texts proving Denise Richards actually did try to fuck Brandi Glanville!!!
Along with his open letter to Wilde, LaBeouf provided Variety with a video Wilde sent him in which she implored him to reconsider quitting Don’t Worry Darling and assured him she could convince Pugh to get back on board with working with him if he’d agree to come back, describing the tumult of his resignation as “a wake-up call for Miss Flo.”
A wake-up call for Miss Flo.
So to sum up: Pugh made it known she was not comfortable working with a notoriously volatile LaBeouf who was shortly thereafter revealed to be an actual abuser; Wilde allowed the narrative that LaBeouf was fired to be the conventional wisdom for two years, reupping it last month in Variety; then LaBeouf popped in with proof that not only was she lying but she also tried to get him to come back against Florence Pugh’s express wishes and assured him she could convince Pugh to do intimate sex scenes with a person she was not comfortable working with on a set, again, rumored to have had no intimacy coordinator.
!!!!!!!!!
And then referred to Pugh as “Miss Flo” like she and LaBeouf were two catty gay men dragging each other’s outfits.
!!!!!!!!!111!!!!!!
Bitch my eyes bugged out of my head like a fucking cartoon and fell into my fucking lap. Is this whole thing a prestige picture by a director who has positioned herself as a feminist moral authority or the goddamn workroom on RuPaul’s Drag Race? No offense but it’s starting to look like this Empress is missing a few articles of clothing!
Anyway, please remain seated because you already know there’s still more.
In the wake of all of this shit, two things happen: One, Wilde’s stans all start pointing out that she never said she fired LaBeouf, Variety did. Which is true! But so did Vulture nearly two years ago, and Wilde has never corrected the record until two weeks ago, on a glorified BLOG no less (what is this, 2007?! he snarked into his newsletter that is essentially a spruced-up Live Journal). I haven’t been less convinced of an innocence plea since Lisa Vanderpump claimed she wasn’t the person who leaked to the press that Dorit returned Lucy Lucy Apple Juice to the dog shelter like an ill-fitting pair of pants! I may be a middle-aged man who took a day off work to scream about Hollywood gossip into an email newsletter four people read but I’m not an idiot! Fuck you!
But that isn’t even the meat on the bone. After all this news breaks, Pugh refuses to comment except to announce—LOLOLOLOLOLOL—that aside from appearing at the Venice Film Festival premiere and press conference she will not be doing any press for Don’t Worry Darling.
The film! Of which! She is! THE STAR!!!
You don’t just NOT do press for a film you’re the star of!!! It’s like, IDK, Biden winning the election and being like “LOL Inauguration? How about you inaugurate these NYUTS! *laughs in malarkey*” and then fucks off to Delaware while the rest of us are like “do we… is there… like in charge of the government, is there anyone at this time, or???” I mean that’s not an exact graft of a metaphor but you know what I mean. It simply isn’t done, and there’s nothing I love better than a woman who simply cannot be bothered with the rules. It’s perfection. It’s perfection! She said, “‘Miss Flo’ sends her regrets” and that was simply that on that!
So naturally, rumors about Pugh and Wilde not getting along begin swirling again, which Wilde then goes into overdrive refuting, and literally nobody but her stans is buying it. It reminds me of a story I heard about this random couple I know whose identity I can not reveal but are definitely not my parents, who were in the midst of a divorce, and the wife showed up to the company picnic six months pregnant anyway just to be a bitch (girlboss!), and when the husband’s new girlfriend got mad he sidled up to his wife and whispered “I wish you wouldn’t be like this, she’s a nice woman” and the wife bellowed “NICE WOMEN DO NOT STEAL PREGNANT WOMEN’S HUSBANDS” and then went back to the conversation she was having with his boss’s wife like nothing had even happened. Which first of all, #FEMINISM.
But second of all, if dude had then gone to work on Monday and been like, “Listen the wife and I have our differences but we really are still on great terms”? That’s basically what Olivia Wilde has done with Florence Pugh, and it’s like, bestie I love you like we share blood but WE ALL SAW WHAT HAPPENED AT THE COMPANY PICNIC WOT YA CHATTIN ‘BOUT MATE?!
So that brings us up to this weekend at the Venice Film Festival, which if you can believe it, is where all the real shit went down.
Pugh keeps her word by attending the festival. HOWEVER. That whole agreement to do press at Venice? LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLLLLLLLL. This absolute dream of a woman pranced up off a Venice water taxi in a purple Valentino shorts set at precisely the stroke of THE JUNKET WAS ALREADY HALF OVER O’CLOCK all, “sorry, my plane was late” and then proceeded to do THIS:
Just swanned about with an Aperol spritz and a look on her face that said “lol fuck you and your little junket.” I threw my phone at the wall like an old Greek man celebratorily throwing dishes into a fireplace!!!! I have never loved anyone more in my entire fucking life.
And THEN, after ALL THAT, she had the exquisitely unmitigated temerity to show up on the red carpet looking, as previously mentioned, LIKE THIS.
She might as well have leaned into a hot mic and said “Wait, the chaotic bisexual from The O.C. has a film here? Oh my God cute!” To quote Saucy Santana, now that’s how you clear a bitch. A serve the equal of which we shall never know, I fear!!!
Meanwhile inside said press junket? Let’s just say Pugh’s input was sorely missed because saying words about the medium of film is not the forte of either Harry Styles or his perfect jawline. Here’s a clip in which Styles says something so dumb you can actually see Chris Pine’s soul leaving his body.
Let’s punch in on Pine, shall we?
Dissociating. Splitting into multiple personalities. Straight-up praying for the grave. The ne plus ultra of NeNe Leakes “Now why am I in it?”s.
Now, surely this is all just idle Hollywood gossip from a people and a culture who hate to see women succeed period, let alone together, and Olivia Wilde and Florence Pugh are actually besties, right? Girl, I guess! But not if this photo from the screening is to be believed.
Also shout out to Nick Kroll and Gemma Chan for just straight up not even existing as far as the drama is concerned. Just sitting there being nice and happy and funny and enjoying his moment as part of a big festival picture. You gotta respect a guy and gal who know when to just stay out of the way and let others run the show, by which I mean be a full goddamn mess. Because if you can fucking believe it—I still can’t—it got even messier STILL from here.
There’s no way to say this gently, so let’s just cut to the chase: HAROLD STYLES SPIT ON CHRISTOPHER PINE. Roll the tape!
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! What is there to even say?! Other than hot men spitting in each other’s faces is gay shit and MY! CULTURE! IS! NOT! YOUR! FILM! FESTIVAL! PRESS MOMENT! Stop appropriating the customs of my people, Harold!
Now I hear you: it’s admittedly hard to know for certain if Harold actually spat upon Christopher from this video, especially since slowed down versions like the one below make it appear as if nothing actually happened and Chris Pine was just looking for his sunglasses in his lap or something.
BUT I KNOW WHAT I SAW. I am a Harold Spitting on Christopher Truther! JET FUEL CAN’T MELT STEEL BEAMS AND CHRIS PINE WAS NOT LOOKING FOR HIS SUNGLASSES AT THE 2022 VENICE FILM FESTIVAL SCREENING OF OLIVIA WILDE’S PSYCHOLOGICAL THRILLER DON’T WORRY DARLING STARRING FLORENCE PUGH. There’s something they’re not telling us!!!
Which is why this woman needs to be dragged downtown for questioning immediately.
What does she know and when did she know it?! Subpoena her footage! Call the FBI! The CIA! Call MI5, MI6, MIs 7-18, the International Criminal Court, the UN Security Council, fuck it get fucking Hans Blix’s ass on the line! Hand him a shovel and tell him to exhume Abraham Zapruder if you have to WE GOTTA CRACK THIS FUCKING CASE!!!!!
Meanwhile, through ALL of this shit, I cannot stress enough that Florence Pugh simply cannot and will not and shall not be bothered. She’s just like:
Anyway at this point I can only assume that Wilde is trolling and this spitting thing is a false flag to generate even more publicity for the movie. I mean come on, even Desperate Housewives didn’t go this gonzo. And honestly good for her! Wilde’s played a bit dirty in this whole thing but in the end I’m pulling for her, because a fun science fact is that every time a woman succeeds, a straight man’s testosterone declines by half and one of his balls starts shooting blanks, and that is a blessing!
But even if this all blows up in her face and the movie ends up being shit (and some of the early reviews suggest it might be adjacent thereto), Florence Pugh is the real winner, and that is all that truly matters.
Now someone get Andy Cohen on the line because we need a Don’t Worry Darling reunion special immediately.
*Note: I was unable to verify whether or not there was an intimacy coordinator on the set of Don’t Worry Darling; this post has been edited to reflect this.
If you liked this nonsense, or at least didn’t hate it, like maybe if you were bored while taking a dump one morning you might even read it again, you should consider mashing this button!
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Okay, see you soon!
I am giddy, what a telling <3 <3
I have been WAITING for this. Also, word on the street is that even though Wilde was thoroughly dickmatized by Harry, he didn’t talk to her at all in Venice. (Nick Kroll & Kroll show are perfection and I’ll root for him always)