Warner Bros.
It’s been around four months since we were treated to the first trailer for Don’t Worry Darling, a movie that managed to generate a fair amount of buzz out of the gate thanks to a cast that includes Chris Pine, Florence Pugh, Olivia Wilde (who also serves as its director), and, of course, the biggest draw of all: Harry Styles, the former One Direction member tackling his most significant acting role to date.
As of this writing, Don’t Worry Darling sports a 44% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. However, there’s really no scale capable of measuring the boatloads of drama it’s generated courtesy of what allegedly unfolded during filming and in the leadup to its release on September 23rd.
When you consider the amount of tea that’s been spilled concerning what went down behind-the-scenes rivals the amount the Sons of Liberty chucked into Boston Harbor, it’s hard to sum up all the stories that have been flying around without sounding like a 14-year-old breaking down some school dance-related turmoil (it’s also worth noting we have no way of verifying any of the allegations I’m about to describe, so you should take everything you’re about to read with a grain of salt).
A brief summary of the Don’t Worry Darling saga
Thankfully, there are plenty of people online who’ve done a fairly good job succinctly summing up this tornado of controversy, which includes Wilde butting heads with Pugh after allegedly cheating on Jason Sudekis with Styles (and subsequently getting divorce papers while promoting the movie at an event), contradictory accounts concerning Shia LaBeouf’s dismissal from the project, and plenty of speculation there’s some bad blood between Pine and Styles thanks to what unfolded at the Venice Film Festival.
SO FLORENCE PUGH DIDN'T LIKE OLIVIA WILDE HOOKING UP WITH HARRY STYLES BECAUSE SHE'S FRIENDS WITH OLIVIA'S HUSBAND JASON SUDEIKIS SO FLORENCE WOULDN'T PROMOTE THE MOVIE. THEN SHIA LEBEOUF LEAKED A VIDEO OF OLIVIA CALLING FLORENCE "MISS FLO" & NOW HARRY SPIT ON CHRIS PINE, BUT… pic.twitter.com/H3NxkEavxQ
— Mvelase 🏳️🌈✊🏾🏳️⚧️ (@MvelaseP) September 6, 2022
Coach is not so secretly sleeping with a player, making the entire team feel awkward, but esp the qb who is friends with the coach’s wife. Also the wr w/ domestic abuse allegations the coach claims he cut for qb’s sake posts video proving he actually requested a trade.
— Olivia Nope (@ranchocarnetor0) September 6, 2022
Some of these developments are fairly recent, but it would appear these rumored troubles have been brewing for a while based on a resurfaced video that sheds some new light on what’s gone done.
A TikTok posted in 2021 gave us our first hint all was not well on the set of Don’t Worry Darling
As Uproxx notes, the TikTok equivalent of the gossip column staple known as a “blind item” was uploaded back in 2021 by a user relaying the experience of an anonymous person who worked as a production assistant on the set of “an upcoming movie” starring a “young blonde actress” and a “former British boy band member” led by a “female director” (which checks three major boxes).
@dearjane1 That director is wild :/ Story was sent to me. No warranty for correctness. #story #storytime #tea #celeb
If we are operating under the assumption the movie in question was indeed Don’t Worry Darling, the claims of the PA in question include some very juicy tidbits about Wilde fostering a “toxic work environment” that involved her banning Sudekis from the set and led to Pugh essentially taking over directing duties because the actual director was too focused on her budding relationship with Styles.
Again, it’s impossible to verify any of this, but it sure sounds like it lines up with a lot of the juicy news that surfaced in recent months.