Olivia Munn recalled a “traumatic” experience on a past movie set that resulted in her turning down an NDA — and over $1 million — to allegedly silence her voice.
“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,” Munn, 44, recalled during the Tuesday, February 18, episode of the “Reclaiming” podcast.
The actress didn’t reveal what movie set was toxic, but she told host Monica Lewinsky that it was so bad that she was “offered a lot of money” to stay quiet.
“[It was] a lot of money — seven figures to accept, I guess, their apology and them taking acknowledgement of it,” Munn claimed, noting that the offer came with an NDA.
She explained that she wouldn’t have “talked about it” because she “just wanted to move past it all” but that wasn’t the point.
“I said, ‘I’m not signing an NDA,’ and they said, ‘You have to,’ and I just felt that it was so wrong,” Munn said, adding that the incident took place at the beginning of the #MeToo movement when Harvey Weinstein was coming under fire. (Weinstein was found guilty of rape and sexual assault charges in February 2020 and sentenced to 23 years in prison. He was later sentenced to an additional 16 years for more rape and sexual assault convictions.)
The Newsroom alum remembered it as “the reckoning” in Hollywood when “people were targeting anyone who signed an NDA, saying, ‘Oh, you only did it for the money.’”
That perception made Munn “afraid that my voice and speaking up would reverse any kind of validity to my voice.”
She was equally “concerned” that the movie studio would “leak out that I had signed an NDA for money” in “an effort to diminish my voice.”
Despite her hesitation, Munn met with the studio’s legal team. She ultimately turned down the offer — and made sure she was able to tell off the lawyers herself.
“I turned to my lawyer and I said, ‘I’m not taking it,’” Munn recalled. “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!’”
She pointed to that quick decision as part of the “feistiness of not thinking things through” she has carried with her throughout her life.
“[I was] so upset and frustrated that this would be offered to me that I did not think about negotiating, I did not think about anything besides how disrespectful that was,” Munn confessed.
When the studio’s team reminded her how much money she would get in a “disrespectful” tone and called her “crazy” for not taking the deal she was even more sure of her decision.
“I said to [the attorney], ‘I know this is a lot of money to you, but it is not a lot of money to me to lose my voice,’” she shared. “And we walked out of there, and I remember feeling so proud when I walked out — so proud of myself.”
Munn noted that NDAs became illegal shortly after this incident. She explained that if they were still allowed, she would make the same choice she did then.
“Look, was it the right thing to do and do the people in my life think that I did the right thing and are proud of me for that? Yes,” she reflected.
Munn concluded, “It’s not that I wouldn’t have ended up with the same decision, it’s that I made that decision based on anger, and that is something I had to learn how to rein in and use for my benefit.”
