Olivia Munn has revealed she once turned down a seven figure NDA after a “traumatic” incident on a set drove her to file complaints with the studio.
Speaking with Monica Lewinsky on the Reclaiming podcast, Munn revealed that on an unnamed movie set there were “things that happened” to her that were “really not okay,” even labelling the events as “so traumatic”.
“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. But it came along with an NDA,” the actress shared.
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Munn went on to say that regardless of whether or not she signed an NDA she ”would never have talked about it” anyway because she simply wanted to move on and leave it in her past.
“But I said, ‘I’m not signing an NDA’,” Munn said, adding that the studio then told her that she “had to”.
“I just felt that it was so wrong. And at this time, specifically. This was like in the beginning of the Me Too, Times Up [movement].”
Munn began to tell the story after sharing with Lewinsky that because she moved schools a lot being a part of a military family, she was always the “new kid” and often got bullied.
She explained that because of this she became quit defensive of herself and as she grew up she began to have trouble seeing the nuance in situations and has instead looked at things as either wrong or right.
But it was this situation that she found herself in that took her right back to the days of getting bullied.
She said that although she doesn’t regret her decision, she does somewhat regret the way she handled it.
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“I was afraid that my voice in speaking up would just reverse any kind of validity to my voice. And I was concerned that they would leak it out,” Munn revealed.
“I was concerned that the studio, in an effort to diminish my voice, would leak out that I had signed an NDA for money.”
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So, when she was offered the NDA and was told to “take some time to think about it” by her lawyers, Munn’s emotions were only heightened.
“I turned to my lawyer and I said, ‘I’m not taking it… I want to say no now’,” she recalled.
“And that comes into the feistiness of not thinking things through and being so upset and frustrated that this would be the offer to me.
“I did not think about negotiating. I did not think about anything besides how disrespectful that was.”
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When Munn and her lawyers returned to the where three people from the studio sat waiting for her decision, one of them had fallen asleep.
“And so I’m like, ‘clearly you take this very seriously’,” she added.
When she denied the NDA, she said that the studio representatives acted as though she was “crazy” for turning down the money, adding that they way they said it “was disrespectful”.
“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,” she told Lewinsky.
“And I remember feeling so proud when I walked out. So proud of myself. And shortly after that, California made NDAs illegal.”
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Munn shared that she still stands by the fact that she did the right thing, and that the people in her life agree and are proud of her because of it, but she wishes she handled the situation differently.
”It’s not that I wouldn’t have ended up with the same decision. It’s that I made that decision based on anger,” she shared.
“And that is something that I had to learn how to rein in and use for my benefit. But the only time it’s – I’ve realised that I’ve benefited from it – is when I have taken the time to really think about things and digest it and talk it out.”
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