Highlights
- Olivia Wilde says Pamela Anderson sent support during Don’t Worry Darling backlash.
- Anderson advised Wilde to “stay soft” amid intense public scrutiny.
- Wilde reflects on the pressure of staying silent to protect her film’s cast and crew.
Olivia Wilde says Pamela Anderson helped her survive the media storm surrounding Don’t Worry Darling.
The director and actress opened up about the unlikely friendship during a recent appearance on the Call Her Daddy podcast, revealing that Anderson reached out to her with words of encouragement during one of the most brutal press cycles of her career.
Wilde explained that she first connected with Anderson after watching her 2023 Netflix documentary, Pamela, A Love Story. “I actually learned this from, this sounds so crazy. But after I saw the documentary, I reached out to her, and I was like, ‘Yo, respect. Just want to say big fan,'” Wilde recalled.
According to Wilde, Anderson was already tuned into the chaos surrounding the 2022 film’s release. “She was aware of some of the s–t that I was going through,” Wilde said, adding that Anderson offered her a piece of advice that stuck. “The most rebellious thing you can do is stay soft. Don’t let it harden you.”
Don’t Worry Darling became a tabloid fixture amid rumors of tension between Wilde and star Florence Pugh, an alleged spitting incident involving Harry Styles and Chris Pine, and the director’s headline-grabbing breakup from Jason Sudeikis. Wilde admitted she felt powerless to push back against the narratives swirling around her.
“It was so hard, because I wanted to be like, ‘Can I just talk to people? Can I just go and say, “That’s not true! That’s not true!”‘” she said. “And it was like, ‘No, that won’t help.’ And that was really hard.”
Wilde said her silence wasn’t about protecting herself, but about shielding her team. “It’s not about me. It’s about this movie that everyone works so hard to make,” she explained. “And I felt like I was working on behalf of hundreds of people who had worked through Covid to make something really difficult.”
Looking back, Wilde didn’t hold back on just how harsh the scrutiny became. “The pummeling that I took was so insanely disproportionate,” she said.
Anderson, who weathered her own decades of tabloid abuse dating back to her Baywatch days, has become something of an elder statesman for stars navigating public scandal, and Wilde’s tribute suggests that solidarity left a lasting mark.
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