For the second week in a row, Kim Kardashian’s character on “American Horror Story: Delicate” has stolen the spotlight in this horror anthology series. This time around it’s because of a jab from Siobhan (Kardashian) about director Olivia Wilde “low-key” gaslighting people throughout the press tour for “Don’t Worry Darling.”
In “Rockabye,” Anna Victoria Alcott (Emma Roberts) is nominated for a Gotham Award, the first major step to getting an Oscar nomination. Throughout the episode, Anna has to juggle the arduous press journey that comes with Oscar consideration, her own worries about her pregnancy and her mounting fears that she’s either being tricked by everyone around her or that she’s losing her mind. It all comes to a head when Anna goes to accept her Gotham Award. Soon after she takes the stage she vomits, puking a black, tar-like substance onto the podium.
The next day, Siobhan consults Anna on what her strategy should be going forward. “We are going to pull a wild card, as in Olivia Wilde,” Siobhan says. “Don’t mention what happened and wait until everyone forgets, slash low-key gaslight people that do ask and make them think that they’re the problem because, you know, sexism.”
Though the name of the movie is never mentioned, the spiel is a clear reference to the press tour for “Don’t Worry Darling.” During the promotion of the film, rumors emerged that Wilde and her film’s star, Florence Pugh, clashed on set. Compounding the drama around the film, the press tour happened around the same time of Wilde’s very public separation with “Ted Lasso” star Jason Sudeikis and during her relationship with the film’s star, Harry Styles. The rumors led to multitudes of social media posts as well as a tidal wave of backlash against the director.
It was later speculated that this response largely emerged from sexism and that the largely negative social media reaction could be traced back to the pop star’s fanbase. Still, Wilde handled the situation much like Siobhan outlined in “AHS: Delicate:” She mostly ignored the cyclones of drama swirling around her, and the film’s PR team leaned into the ant-feminist angle.
Starring Roberts, Kardashian and Cara Delevingne, “American Horror Story: Delicate” marks the first time the horror anthology series hasn’t been showrun by executive producer Ryan Murphy. Halley Feiffer serves as the showrunner in a season based on the book “Delicate Condition” by Danielle Valentine. The series follows a movie star on the edge of achieving greater fame who desperately wants to become a mother. But the further she progresses in her IVF treatments, the more she comes to suspect people are working against her and her future child.
