Olivia Wilde is looking back on the whirlwind romance that saw her marry an Italian prince after getting engaged at Burning Man when she was just 19.
The actress, 42, opened up about her eight-year marriage to filmmaker and aristocrat Tao Ruspoli during an appearance on the Call Her Daddy podcast, admitting she was struck by doubts almost immediately after saying ‘I do.’
Long before her high-profile relationship with Jason Sudeikis, with whom she shares two children, Wilde tied the knot with Ruspoli in 2003 in what she now describes as a wildly impulsive decision.
The pair became engaged at the free-spirited Nevada festival before exchanging vows aboard an abandoned school bus in rural Virginia.
‘It seemed like probably the craziest thing to do, and it was so romantic and insane,’ Wilde recalled.
‘And then, immediately, I was like, “Wait, what the f*** did I just do?”‘
Olivia Wilde is looking back on the whirlwind romance that saw her marry an Italian prince after getting engaged at Burning Man when she was just 19
The actress, 42, opened up about her eight-year marriage to filmmaker and aristocrat Tao Ruspoli during an appearance on the Call Her Daddy podcast, admitting she was struck by doubts almost immediately after saying ‘I do’; Above, in 2005
She added, ‘Because I had a pattern already at that point of spontaneous decision making.
‘And I think that is one of the beauties of youth, but I would get myself into a whole bunch of trouble all the time.’
She went on to suggest the union may not have even been legally airtight, claiming the paperwork was ‘probably invalid’ after being handled by an officiant they had ‘found on the internet.’
‘We did not have a very traditional marriage. It was very bohemian,’ Wilde added. ‘And I am grateful for it because it meant that I spent most of my twenties [that way].’
The pair remained married for several years before announcing their separation in February 2011, with their divorce finalized later that year.
Despite the split, Wilde says there was no drama in the end, insisting the relationship simply ran its course as they grew in different directions.
‘It was not a very tumultuous breakup,’ she said. ‘It was just like, this is clearly… we have grown up. We’re in very different stages of life.’
Looking back now, the actress says the whole chapter feels almost surreal.
The pair became engaged at the free-spirited Nevada festival before exchanging vows aboard an abandoned school bus in rural Virginia; Above, in 2009
‘And it’s funny now. Like, we’re friends. I mean, it seems like 100,000 years ago, it’s crazy.’
In 2017, Ruspoli also revealed that he and Wilde had maintained an amicable relationship following their split.
‘I’m very friendly with her and her whole family I still think of as my family,’ he told Mel Magazine.
In the same podcast, Wilde also opened up about the moment she realized her relationship with Sudeikis had finally come to an end.
Speaking ahead of her new film The Invite, which explores a couple navigating the collapse of their marriage, she told host Alex Cooper: ‘It’s no surprise to me that I ended up making a movie about relationships and the complexity of determining whether a relationship is over because it is not an overnight process.
‘It’s very difficult and the idea that relationships can come to a place where you become strangers.’
Reflecting on the exact moment she knew things were over between her and Sudeikis, she recalled a conversation during a drive home on her birthday in March 2020.
‘Like I mean I always I remember the date because it was my birthday, but this is March 2020, March 10th.
The pair remained married for several years before announcing their separation in February 2011, with their divorce finalized later that year; Above, in 2010
‘And Jason and I had been having a rough time of it for a while. Like we had we had a real bumpy bumpy ride. And we were driving home from my birthday party and I said, “Did you give me a birthday present?”
‘And he said, “What would I get you, Olivia? I don’t know you.” And he wasn’t wrong. We didn’t know each other anymore.’
Olivia continued: ‘This is the thing that made me want to make this movie because you can get to a place in a relationship where you stop engaging in the knowing of each other, in the curiosity about each other and you find yourself in a place where you’re like, “I don’t even know you.”
‘And that was the point when we realised it was over and it was f****g tough and it brought us to the place of like, “okay this is done. We’re going to end this.” And then literally two days later was lockdown.’
Wilde and Sudeikis were together from 2011 until they publicly announced their split in November 2020.
They got engaged in 2013 and share two children, Otis, 12, and Daisy, nine.
