Olivia Wilde and Jason Sudeikis' custody battle is turning ugly. The actress is calling her estranged ex out for intentionally trying to humiliate her by serving her with custody papers while she was on stage at a live event in April.
According to court filings, Wilde — who is now dating Harry Styles — and the father of her children, Otis, 8, and daughter Daisy, 5, had an amicable custody and coparenting agreement following their 2020 split until they got into a disagreement in April about where they would be permanently raising their tots.
Wilde and Sudeikis reportedly used to alternate one-week periods of "parental access," while they both split their time between New York, Los Angeles and London, where the "As It Was" musician lives.
In response to their disagreement over location, the actor filed a custody petition, with Wilde infamously being served the court documents while giving a speech about her new movie, Don't Worry Darling, on stage at CinemaCon in Las Vegas.
While standing in front of more than 4,000 film industry executives, Wilde was awkwardly handed the envelope by a court process server. Though neither of the parties addressed the incident at the time — though a source close to Sudeikis claimed he did not know Wilde would be served in such a public and humiliating way — the House star expressed her reaction in the court documents.
"Jason's actions were clearly intended to threaten me and catch me off guard. He could have served me discreetly, but instead he chose to serve me in the most aggressive manner possible," she said in her motion to dismiss the action, as she slammed her ex for his "outrageous legal tactics" of delivering the documents "mid-speech."
"The fact that Jason would embarrass me professionally and put our personal conflict on public display in this manner is extremely contrary to our children's best interests," Wilde's documents reportedly read. "Since Jason has made it clear that we will not be able to work this out for our children's sake outside of the court system, I filed a petition for custody in Los Angeles."
In regards to relocating their children, Wilde argue in her motion that she and Sudeikis agreed to send their kids to school in L.A. for the year since he was wrapping up the final season of Ted Lasso in London.
"Recently, however, Jason decided that he wanted to go to New York for the next year while he is not working, and wanted the children to be with him there during this time off," she reportedly noted. "When I did not agree, since the children have not lived in New York for several years, Jason filed these papers."
