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Did Harry Styles Spit on Chris Pine? Does Everyone on ‘Don’t Worry Darling’ Hate Each Other? An Investigation

Open-source investigators, Harry Styles fans, and people who simply love drama breaking down, frame by frame, are trying to uncover what exactly is happening here.
The cast of
Image Source: Stefania D'Alessandro / Getty

Did Harry Styles spit on Chris Pine or not? This is the question overtaking Twitter, work Slacks, group chats, and casual conversation today. 

Overnight, this clip, taken during the premiere for Don’t Worry Darling at the Venice Film Festival, has gone megaviral, with open source investigators, Harry Styles fans, and people who simply love drama breaking down, frame by frame, what exactly is happening here. Styles leans over Pine, and then Pine goes from laughing to making an uncomfortable face. Given that there has been an incredible amount of drama associated with Don’t Worry Darling, it is not surprising at all that some fans are convinced that Styles spit on Pine.

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Fans have slowed down the footage, zoomed in on it, and looked at it from multiple angles, but as much as people insist that Pine was just looking for his sunglasses, others insist with just as much surety that Styles spit on Pine.

Aric Toler, lead researcher and trainer at the open-source intelligence and investigative group Bellingcat, told Motherboard that it seems unlikely that Styles spit at Pine based on the position of his lips.

“With a Zapruder film-style reconstruction it's kinda hard to say ‘oh obviously no spit’ because it's pretty zoomed in, and hey maybe it's little bits of spittle that didn't get caught with the lighting/angle,” Toller said. “But him having his lips pursed back like that makes it pretty obvious that he wasn't hocking a loogie or really doing something that would elicit an incredulous reaction like that.”

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How did we get here? Let me explain.

Don’t Worry Darling is the second film from former actress and current director Olivia Wilde. Her first movie, Booksmart, was generally liked by critics and passed through culture with almost no dramatics. This second movie has been much more of a spectacle in general—it has a much bigger budget and scope, and stars not only Florence Pugh, who starred in Midsommar and has captivated critics and audiences ever since, but also international superstar Harry Styles. The movie also vaguely gestures towards feminist ideas in its trailer, which depicts Pugh and Styles as husband in wife in an idyllic 1950s neighborhood that almost assuredly is not what it seems.

One of the major issues that has cropped up for Wilde in the promotion of this film is that she is dating Harry Styles. They met on set, she left her longtime partner Jason Sudeikis for him, and now they are an item. If you are within an extremely specific subset of Harry Styles fans that have shipped him with his One Direction bandman Louis Tomlinson, this is a huge problem. These fans hate pretty much anyone who would date Styles in general, and Olivia Wilde specifically. They have leveled some extremely misogynistic abuse at the director, and in at least one case, and have further spread theories that originate from QAnon that Wilde is a pedophile or otherwise supports pedophilia (for what it’s worth, Wilde is 38; Styles is 28). 

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At least one popular anti-Wilde account on Twitter originated as a pro-Trump, QAnon truther account.

Wilde is also fighting a PR battle with Shia LaBeouf, who was originally cast in Harry Styles’s role. Wilde said that she fired him over a conflict with Florence Pugh, who plays the lead female character, but LaBeouf has since leaked correspondence between himself and Wilde to the press that seem to indicate that LaBeouf was not fired, but quit. LaBeouf alleges that Wilde lied to press for “clickbait,” and references allegations made by his ex-girlfriend, musician FKA Twigs, that he was abusive. Twigs is suing LaBeouf.

“My failings with Twigs are fundamental and real, but they are not the narrative that has been presented,” he said, according to correspondence provided by LaBeouf to Variety. “There is a time and a place to deal with such things, and I am trying to navigate a nuanced situation with respect for her and the truth, hence my silence. But this situation with your film and my ‘firing’ will never have a court date with which to deal with the facts.”

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LaBeouf also leaked a video from Wilde, in which she references a conflict between LaBeouf and “Miss Flo,” which fans have taken to mean Florence Pugh. In the video, Wilde is heard asking if LaBeouf will come back to the film.

This has ignited yet another fandom that was once potentially excited for this film: the Florence Pugh hive. Fans had noticed for a long time that Pugh rarely mentions the movie on social media, and has not done a lot of press for the film. There were rumors of a feud between Wilde and Pugh based on their respective social media postings, and also Pugh’s discomfort at the hypersexualized marketing of the film, but the video and the “Miss Flo” comment turned it from whispers to shouts. This weekend, Don’t Worry Darling premiered at the Venice Film Festival, and Pugh declined to appear at the press conference before the screening. Pugh arrived five minutes after Wilde was asked why the star of her film was not at the press conference, wearing a royal purple matching set and drinking an Aperol Spritz.

How does Chris Pine play into this? Well, he is also in the movie (as is Nick Kroll, who so far remains a bystander to all of this), and does not appear to be having the greatest time doing press for it. During the press conference for the film, Pine looks like he is imagining being anywhere but where he is as Styles says that the best thing about Don’t Worry Darling is that it is a film.

Some of the mysteries unearthed by the Don’t Worry Darling press tour may never be solved. Whether LaBeouf was quit or fired, if Wilde and Pugh hate each other, or whether Styles spit at another adult man during his movie premiere all seem like Hollywood mysteries for the ages. One thing is more clear now though: some parts of fandom are completely indistinguishable from QAnon to the point that you can switch allegiances without most people noticing. When Wilde was asked about the various piece of drama surrounding her movie at the press conference for Don’t Worry Darling in Venice she replied that she wasn’t going to further fuel the gossip on the internet.

“As for all the endless tabloid gossip and all the noise out there, I mean, the internet feeds itself,” Wilde said. “I don't feel the need to contribute. It's sufficiently well nourished.”

Don’t Worry Darling currently has a 41 percent rating on Rotten Tomatoes. It comes out in the U.S. on September 23.