Actor and director Olivia Wilde has opened up about a viral red carpet moment that had the internet shocked about her appearance this year.
Wilde, 42, stopped for a red carpet interview at the opening night of the San Francisco International Film Festival in late April – and the resulting footage soon went viral on social media for all the wrong reasons.
Wilde appeared wide-eyed and noticeably thinner in the face in the footage, which had fans speculating as to whether she was suffering a health issue. Others were less charitable, and straight up slammed the star over her appearance.
During a new appearance on the Call Her Daddy podcast with Alex Cooper, Wilde – who later poked fun at herself in a video posted to social media with her brother – showed she still hadn’t lost her sense of humour about the viral moment.
“Looking like an actual dead body. I looked like — did you ever watch, are you too young for, Tales from the Crypt?” Wilde asked the host, referencing the Cryptkeeper from the retro horror anthology series.
“Somebody out there will know what I mean. There was like a little dead, sarcophagus man. I looked like a shrunken — I don’t even know how to describe it. It was absolutely insane. And I could not believe,” she said.
Wilde said that, as she was at a small regional film festival with a humble red carpet, she didn’t imagine that photos of herself would be picked up very widely.
“I saw that picture and I was like, ‘All right, but it probably won’t go very far. No one’s gonna see this. No one cares.’ And then suddenly it was f**king everywhere. And I was like, ‘Oh my God,’” she recalled.
Wilde said it was akin to any situation where you have a bad photo taken of yourself – only this time, she had no control over the situation or how many people would see the photo.
“All of us have had this situation where you take a bad picture. You’re like, ‘Okay, well that one, guys, kill it. We all agree. That one goes nowhere.’ And imagine if then it was in a hundred million people’s phones. You’re like, ‘Oh no. But that is not how I actually look.’”
But Wilde also said she was able to laugh off the unfortunate photos pretty quickly, thanks in part to the good-natured ribbing she received from her loved ones.
“I laughed so hard. I mean, the thing that is great about having really good friends is that they are the ones who laugh the hardest. I guarantee any joke that’s been made about me, my friends have made it first, and in a much funnier way, because that’s the important thing. And yeah, we had to laugh.”
Addressing the footage for the first time back in May, Wilde was shown laughing as her younger brother compared her to Gollum – and offered her explanation for the unflattering images seen worldwide.
“Listen! That was a fish eye lens. And I’ll admit – was that my best angle, was that my best ever look? No. No. It’s startling, it was a startling image,” Wilde explained.
“It was a fish eye lens! I don’t know why I was so close to the camera, I didn’t have to be. That’s not … the truth. Do you have any more questions? I’m not dead!”