What a month September has been. We have experienced the true beginning of the school semester (and all the stress that comes with it), the beginning of fall (set off by the autumnal equinox) and best of all entertainment drama. This month contained some of the most interesting entertainment drama that has been lacking for a while.  From Olivia Wilde to Adam Levine to Ned from the Try Guys– how do we recap them all? Well, we read this piece.

The first and best place to start would be examining Don’t Worry Darling (DWD). If you somehow do not know what DWD is, it is a psychological thriller, released on September 23, directed by Olivia Wilde; and stars Florence Pugh and Harry Styles. DWD is set in the 1950s and follows Alice and Jack in the idealized town of Victory. Alice, however, begins to spot cracks in her life and starts investigating if something more sinister is happening in Victory. 

The film was announced in July 2019 with Olivia Wilde set to direct and star in the film. Less than a year later, the cast was announced. In April 2020, Pugh was cast as the lead with Shia LaBeouf in a major supporting role. Both Wilde and Pugh posted about the casting with an air of excitement. Shortly after, on Sept. 11, 2020, Harry Styles took over the role for Shia LaBeouf. Deadline reported that LaBeouf left DWD due to a scheduling conflict. Later that year, on Christmas Eve, PEOPLE confirms that Olivia Wilde fired LaBeouf. 

Early in January 2021, Wilde and Styles are spotted holding hands at a wedding together. This came shortly after it was revealed that Wilde split from her longtime partner and Ted Lasso star Jason Sudeikis. At this time, Pugh is dating Zach Braff who is a friend of Sudeikis. There is no confirmation that Pugh knew more about their relationship but it is hard to ignore the correlation. At the end of the year, Wilde discusses “female pleasure” in DWD. She quips “”I kept saying, ‘Why isn’t there any good sex in film anymore?’ ” and continues to explain that one of her goals was for the audience to “realize how rarely they see female hunger, and specifically this type of female pleasure.”  Rotating back to Sudeikis, on April 27, 2022, Wilde served custody papers while promoting DWD at CinemaCon in Las Vegas. Wilde was on stage giving a speech about DWD when someone from the audience came up to the edge of the stage and handed Wilde a manila envelope. Wilde opened the envelope but continued speaking rather than reveal what was inside it. It was later revealed that the envelope contained custody papers regarding Sudeikis and their two children. 

People start to notice Pugh’s lack of DWD promotion which leads to speculation that there is drama on set. Shortly after, sources alleged that there was on-set drama. Someone reveals to Page Six that Florence was unhappy with Styles and Wilde’s relationship which made the set uncomfortable. In August 2022, Pugh talks with Harper’s Bazaar about the sex scenes that Wilde so highly praised. She admits that she is not happy with the movie being reduced to its sex scenes which feed into the rumors that the DWD was not all sunshine and rainbows. Later that month, LaBeouf is, for some reason, brought back up by Wilde. At this point, LaBeouf is accused of being an abuser by singer FKA Twigs as well as by other women. Wilde states that LaBeouf was fired on set due to non-conductive energy. LaBeouf responds and sends a copy of an email he wrote to Wilde to Variety. It is revealed that LaBeouf quit DWD due to a lack of rehearsal time. He also included a video that Wilde sent two days after he quit. In the video, Wilde tells him “I feel like I’m not ready to give up on this yet, and I, too, am heartbroken and I want to figure this out. You know, I think this might be a bit of a wake-up call for Miss Flo, and I want to know if you’re open to giving this a shot with me, with us. If she really commits, if she really puts her mind and heart into it at this point and if you guys can make peace—and I respect your point of view, I respect hers—but if you guys can do it, what do you think? Is there hope? Will you let me know?” Shortly after this video is posted to the internet, it is revealed that Pugh was uncomfortable working with him. In the end, Wilde chose Pugh over Labeouf. 

Somehow there is still more that happened this month. On September 5, 2022, Pugh skipped the DWD press at Venice Film Festival but did show up for the red carpet. On the red carpet, Pugh and Wilde pose for a photo together. At the Venice Film Festival, a clip emerges of Styles taking his seat next to Pine. This video is dissected and people theorize that Styles SPIT on Pine. Not sure how true this is, you can look at the video, but Pine’s representatives said that the spit occurrence never happened. 

Later in September, DWD is released to theaters everywhere. The crew, still despite rumors of on-set drama which could be backed up by Pugh, posted a photo collage on Instagram of this movie. Was this all a way to grab people’s attention? Was this a real drama? Who KNOWS! That is the beauty of Hollywood. 

In the same week, Adam Levine was revealed to a man who is ruining the Levine name (as someone whose full name is Mia Levine). On Monday, September 19, less than a week after Adam Levine and his wife Behati Prinsloo announced their pregnancy, Sumner Stroh, an Instagram influencer, posted a video on TikTok that revealed that she had an affair with Levine. In the video, she posts screenshots of direct messages (DMs) between the two of them through Instagram. She reveals they were seeing each other for about a year and stopped talking. In June, he messages her again and has a “serious” request. The request: asking for her permission to use the name Sumner if he and his WIFE have a son.  Sumner never planned to reveal these messages but she showed some friends and one of whom tried to sell images of the screenshots to a tabloid. 

As one can imagine, these alleged Instagram DMs have become the internet’s latest meme (especially on Twitter). The most popular DM is one in which Levine writes, “Holy f-… Holy f-ing f-, that body of yours is absurd.” Other than feeling the heat from Twitter, other women came forward and accused Adam Levine of flirting through DMs. These women include comedian Maryka and yoga instructor Alanna Zabel. Following all of these accounts, Levine issued a statement to TMZ where he denied he had an “affair” with Sumner but took “full responsibility” for his inappropriate behavior with her. At the time of this piece, Prinsloo and Levine are still together. 

Continuing on the theme of mediocre men, and the last huge drama of September 2022, we look at Ned Fulmer. For context, Ned is a member of the Try Guys. The Try Guys include Ned, Keith Habersberger, Zach Kornfeld, and Eugene Lee Yang who were video producers at BuzzFeed. They started their series in 2014 and left BuzzFeed in 2018 to form their own production company. Recently, fans on Reddit (in r/TryGuys) have noticed that Ned had not appeared in the group’s most recent videos and Ariel, Ned’s wife, was missing from her recent podcasts. It seemed as if Ned was deliberately edited out of the most recent videos. The rumors continued 

when a user on Reddit posted that Ned had been spotted in NYC about three weeks ago kissing Alex Herring, an associate producer at The Try Guys who starred in the channel’s Youtube series Food Babies, and alleged messages from Alex’s fiance Will Thayer. These screencaps and video screenshots are blurry but it was concluded that this was Ned and Alex kissing. Following the Reddit post, fans saw that Keith, Zach, and Eugene all unfollowed Alex and Ned on social media. Additionally Will, Alex’s fiance, unfollowed Alex, removed all their photos together on his Instagram and went private. 

If you do not know, Ned’s WHOLE BRAND is loving his wife. Ned and Ariel married in 2012 after two years of dating and they welcomed their first son Wesley in 2018 and their second son Finley in 2020. He was known as the Wife Guy in the Try Guys group even before they started their own company. In every video, he would mention his wife without fail. 

Ned confirmed the rumors that he cheated on Ariel with Ale on September 27, 2022, with an Instagram post. He wrote “Family should have always been my priority but I lost focus and had a consensual workplace relationship. I’m sorry for any pain that my actions may have caused to the guys and the fans but most of all to Ariel. The only thing that matters right now is my marriage and my children, and that’s where I am going to focus my attention.” In this post, he tagged Ariel and The Try Guys. The Try Guys also confirmed in an Instagram post that Ned was no longer a part of the group following his affair. Lastly, Ariel also shared a post where she confirmed that she and Ned are still together after the affair. 

WHAT A MONTH. The one thing that really intersects all of this drama is the constant appearance of white weaker men (sorry Harry Styles- this point is designated to Shia LaBeouf). I am not sure where the audacity of all these men came from but gosh… I wonder what October will bring!