Olivia Wilde gives speech about fighting through ‘hellfire’ amid nanny scandal
Olivia Wilde gave an impassioned speech about misogyny just hours after her and ex-fiancé Jason Sudeikis’ former nanny made several defaming comments against the former couple.
“Let’s face it, it’s not always easy to keep going,” the actress, 38, said at Elle’s Women in Hollywood celebration on Monday.
”In fact, sometimes it’s tempting to excuse ourselves from the burning hellfire of the misogyny that defines this business and say, ‘Good night, good luck, I’d rather eat glass for a living,’” she continued.
Wilde clarified that she still feels “energized” and “motivated to keep fighting through the hellfire.”
She explained, “It often takes the form of a tight grip of your shoulders and an intense stare into your eyes and a defiant, ‘Do not let them f–k with you.’”
The “Don’t Worry Darling” director added that her fellow honorees — Anne Hathaway, Michelle Yeoh, Issa Rae, Sydney Sweeney, Sigourney Weaver and Ariana DeBose — need to “remind the world” that they “aren’t so easily manipulated.”
The actress said, “No matter how much the patriarchy relies on us to cut each other down in order to weaken our collective power, we have to resist the urge to play by their self-serving rules.”
The “Drinking Buddies” star went on to acknowledge the hate she’s received on social media ever since she began publicly dating Harry Styles in January 2021.
“I was an actress who started producing and then finally got the courage to start directing, and I wouldn’t have started any of it at all if I knew Twitter would be invented,” Wilde joked.
“But here I am. It’s a real thrill to have what is undeniably the greatest job on the planet.”
Wilde ended her speech by poking fun at the drama surrounding her “Don’t Worry Darling” press tour before the psychological thriller hit theaters in late September.
“Let’s face it: You are not a woman in Hollywood until you’ve begged to be placed into a medically induced coma until your press tour is finished,” she said. “Until then, you are just a woman residing in or around the Hollywood area.”
Just ahead of her speech, Wilde and Sudeikis, 47, issued a joint statement in which they denied the “false and scurrilous accusations” their former nanny made against them in an explosive interview with the Daily Mail.
“As parents, it is incredibly upsetting to learn that a former nanny of our two young children [Otis, 8, and Daisy, 6] would choose to make such false and scurrilous accusations about us publicly,” the exes told Page Six on Monday.
“Her now 18-month-long campaign of harassing us, as well as loved ones, close friends and colleagues, has reached its unfortunate apex,” the exes continued. “We will continue to focus on raising and protecting our children with the sincere hope that she will now choose to leave our family alone.”
The anonymous former nanny made several accusations against Sudeikis, including that he discovered Wilde and Styles’ tryst via an old Apple Watch and threw himself under Wilde’s car after she made special salad dressing before going to see the 28-year-old singer.
The comedian allegedly fired the nanny in a fit of drunken rage in February 2021.
