Who is Harry Styles’ girlfriend Olivia Wilde, really? The Tron actress based her stage name on Oscar Wilde, has two kids with Ted Lasso star Jason Sudeikis, and was once even married to a prince
- Wilde, who once starred alongside Amber Heard and Bruce Willis in one of her breakout films, Alpha Dog, has stood up for her One Direction boyfriend’s decision to wear dresses
- The actress has two children with her ex, Ted Lasso star Jason Sudeikis, whom she met on the set of SNL, but hinted she sometimes feels like a failure as a parent
Olivia Wilde enjoyed roles in television series’ The OC and film The Girl Next Door early on in her career, then went on to bigger success by scoring a part in Alpha Dog with Bruce Willis and Amber Heard, playing Quorra in Tron, and being Joaquin Phoenix’s character’s blind date in Her.
But how much do you know about the star off the screen?
Wilde isn’t her real surname
Born Olivia Jane Cockburn in New York, in 1984, the actress has an older sister and younger brother. Her father is British magazine editor Andrew Cockburn and her mother, Leslie Cockburn, is an investigative journalist and filmmaker. Her great, great grandfather, Henry Arthur Blake, was even Governor of Hong Kong.
She chose her stage name after appearing in an Oscar Wilde play in high school. “At the time, I was doing The Importance of Being Earnest – I was playing Gwendolyn, and I was so in love with it,” she told New York’s Observer.
“Oscar Wilde is someone who I respect for so many reasons – a revolutionary, a comedian, and a profound thinker. I had all these reasons – but what I didn’t foresee is that people would think of it as a sexy adjective.”
She met her partners in interesting ways
The actress, who appeared in television show House for five years until 2012, met her ex, Ted Lasso’s Jason Sudeikis, on the set of Saturday Night Live and Harry Styles on the set of Don’t Worry Darling. She met her ex-husband – filmmaker Tao Ruspoli – at 18 years old after being set up on a date with the then 27-year-old by a family friend.
“My dad did have a minor heart attack, and it was hard to imagine settling down at the time,” she told Women’s Health. “But there was this wave of romantic excitement and an overwhelming sense that we were supposed to be family.”
She married a prince before her engagement to Jason Sudeikis
Wilde married Italian Prince Tao Ruspoli, the son of the ninth Prince of Cerveteri, when she was 19 years old after just six months of dating. They wed on an abandoned school bus, which Prince Tao lived on at the time, and had just two witnesses in an attempt to keep the marriage secret. However, it didn’t work out and the pair divorced in 2011 after eight years of marriage. “I hung on for as long as possible until it was more hurtful to stay,” she told Marie Claire.