Olivia Wilde says being served custody papers from Jason Sudeikis on stage was 'vicious'

US actress and director Olivia Wilde has described being served custody papers on behalf of former partner Jason Sudeikis, the Ted Lasso star, while she was on stage as "vicious".

Wilde was handed the documents in a brown envelope while talking about her new thriller Don't Worry Darling at CinemaCon in Las Vegas in April.

Footage showed her looking surprised after opening the envelope.

"In any other workplace, it would be seen as an attack," she told Variety.

"It was really upsetting. It shouldn't have been able to happen. There was a huge breach in security, which is really scary.

"The hurdles that you had to jump through to get into that room with several badges, plus special Covid tests that had to be taken days in advance, which gave you wristbands that were necessary to gain access to the event - this was something that required forethought."

The pair were together from 2011 until 2020. Representatives for Sudeikis, the creator and star of sports comedy drama Ted Lasso, previously confirmed that the documents were related to the jurisdiction of the couple's two children, but said he had no prior knowledge of how they would be delivered.

The BBC has contacted them for a further comment.

Wilde is now in a relationship with pop superstar Harry Styles, who appears in Don't Worry Darling. When she was given the envelope at the film convention in April, she scanned its contents before resuming her speech.

In her interview with Variety, she said: "I hated that this nastiness distracted from the work of so many different people and the studio that I was up there representing.

"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."

The 38-year-old confirmed she was dating Styles, 28, in December, after having cast him as Jack in her new film opposite fellow British star Florence Pugh.

Responding to reports that the former One Direction singer was being paid three times more than his female co-star, Wilde said there was "absolutely no validity to those claims".

In the same interview, the director said she had made the decision to fire Shia LaBeouf, who had originally been cast in the role of Jack, because his "process was not conducive to the ethos that I demand in my productions".

"He has a process that, in some ways, seems to require a combative energy, and I don't personally believe that is conducive to the best performances," she said.

A few months after he left the production, LaBeouf's former partner FKA Twigs sued him for sexual battery, which he denied.