Before it went viral, the filmmaker said she thought no one would see video of the incident.

Olivia Wilde reflects on being served Jason Sudeikis custody papers at CinemaCon, says Tom Cruise called it ‘f---ed up’

Before it went viral, the filmmaker said she thought no one would see video of the incident.

By Staff Author

June 17, 2026 12:53 p.m. ET

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Olivia Wilde; Tom Cruise. Credit:

Frazer Harrison/Getty; Dia Dipasupil/FilmMagic

- Olivia Wilde is reflecting on being served legal papers by her ex-fiancé, Jason Sudeikis, in the middle of her 2022 CinemaCon presentation.

- The filmmaker called the experience "really traumatizing."

- She also revealed that Tom Cruise later told her it was "f---ed up" what happened to her.

Olivia Wilde is looking back at her “traumatizing” experience getting served custody papers by her ex-fiancé, Jason Sudeikis, while onstage at CinemaCon in 2022.

The *Invite* director, 42, was in the middle of a presentation about her then-upcoming thriller *Don’t Worry Darling** *when an unidentified woman slid her an envelope — labeled “personal and confidential” — across the stage. Wilde accepted the packet before continuing with her presentation.

“I will never forget one of the most f---ed up things I went through, among so many, was that I was served papers on stage,” Wilde said on a recent episode of *Call Her Daddy*. “And I'll just say that now with enough space behind it, the part that I can laugh at is that… Obviously, it was incredibly traumatizing. There’s so many elements to that, but I get through it because, weirdly, as women we’re taught to muscle through the most insane experiences.”

Olivia Wilde. VALERIE MACON/AFP via Getty Images

So, Wilde focused on completing her presentation instead of the documents in her hands.

“I was like, ‘Just finish your speech!’ Got through it, went backstage, completely dissolved into a puddle,” she recalled. “But then, I thought, ‘No one saw it because there’s no phones allowed in this event. No one saw. Oh, what’s that? It’s already up on *Page Six*? There’s a video? Okay.’”

Even still, Wilde said that she didn’t think anyone was actually going to see the headlines or watch the videos… until she met a Hollywood icon who had. “A couple months later, I had the chance [to meet] Tom Cruise, and he was like, ‘Hi, I’m Tom. F---ed up what happened to you in Vegas,’” she remembered. “I was like, ‘No!’”

Wilde added, “I was like, ‘Okay, so it went wide. Got it. Got it.’”

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To this day, the filmmaker still hasn’t received clarity on whether the incident was intentional or not. Wilde and Sudeikis, who announced their separation in 2020, are parents of son Otis and daughter Daisy.

“Jason has told me that he did not know, and I need to believe that to continue [our coparenting relationship],” Wilde said. “I think that lawyers can be super f---ed up and do f---ed up things. I’m aware of that, and all of that, but I think that people are never their best selves when they’re engaging in that kind of process.”

She continued, “It was so f---ed up in so many ways. I know that, whether or not he knew it was going to happen, I know it really hurt him to see it happening to me. It was undeniable that it was a f---ed up thing and I know he felt very bad that it happened to me.”

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Wilde noted that the incident was “a moment that I ended up doing a lot of therapy about,” adding, “Still kind of do.”

A source close to the situation at the time confirmed to ** that the envelope contained papers “to establish jurisdiction relating to the children" from Sudeikis, but that the *Ted Lasso *creator wasn’t aware that the handoff would take place at the Las Vegas event.

“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,” the source said.

Wilde spoke about the incident in a 2022 *Variety* interview, calling it a “really vicious” move. “In any other workplace, it would be seen as an attack,” she said. “It was really upsetting. It shouldn't have been able to happen."

She added at the time that “hated that this nastiness distracted from the work of so many different people and the studio that I was up there representing,” referring to *Don’t Worry Darling*.

Wilde continued, "To try to sabotage that was really vicious. But I had a job to do; I'm not easily distracted. But, you know, sadly, it was not something that was entirely surprising to me. I mean, there's a reason I left that relationship."

Watch Wilde talk about the incident in the clip above.

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