Olivia Munn was offered $1 million to "keep her mouth shut" about a traumatic incident on the set of an unnamed movie.
The Newsroom actress was featured on the latest episode of Monica Lewinsky’s Reclaiming podcast on iHeartRadio, revealing details about her childhood that played into a bad experience she once had on set.
"Things were really black and white for me and I would make decisions without thinking them through enough. I just was like, ‘This is wrong, this is right,’ and I would never really be able to see the gray."
Munn believed that being bullied as a child (causing her to be feisty and seek justice above all else, per Page Six) led to the scarring filming experience.
"There were other things that happened on this movie set personally to me that was really not OK and it was so traumatic that I had to file complaints with the studio." The actress remarked on a series of red flags amid the filming process but did not go into detail.
"It got to this place where I was offered a lot of money. A lot of money — seven figures to accept I guess their apology and them taking acknowledgement of it." Munn was urged to sign an NDA and felt that being forced to do so was "so wrong."
"Not that I would ever have talked about it, truly, because I just wanted to move past it all. That’s why I don’t want to talk about the specific things that happened in that situation but I said, ‘I’m not signing an NDA,’ and they said, ‘You have to,’ and I just felt that it was so wrong."
The X-Men: Apocalypse standout unveiled that the incident occurred at the height of the #MeToo movement "when people were targeting anyone who signed an NDA saying, ‘Oh, you only did it for the money,’ so I was afraid that my voice and speaking up would reverse any kind of validity to my voice."
She was also afraid the document would be used against her but decided to meet with lawyers before ultimately turning them down.
"I turned to my lawyer and I said, ‘I’m not taking it. I told my lawyer, ‘I’m just not gonna do it. I want to say no now.’ And he was like, ‘Let’s think about it.’ And I said, ‘I want to say no now!' I said to him, ‘I know this is a lot of money to you but it is not a lot of money to me to lose my voice' And we walked out of there and I remember feeling so proud when I walked out — so proud of myself."
Check out the latest episode of Monica Lewinsky’s Reclaiming podcast on iHeartRadio for the full story.