The U.K. edition of Rebel Wilson’s new memoir Rebel Rising will be published with redacted passages about her past on-set experiences with Sacha Baron Cohen.
The Pitch Perfect actress previously shared that in chapter 23, titled “Sacha Baron Cohen and Other Assholes,” she recounts filming 2016’s The Brothers Grimsby with Baron Cohen. Earlier, she also claimed that the previously unnamed actor had hired “a crisis PR manager and lawyers” to “threaten” her over a chapter in her book.
While the complete chapter is still in the U.S. version of the memoir, which hit bookshelves April 2, publisher HarperCollins (U.K.) told The Hollywood Reporter in a new statement, “We are publishing every page, but for legal reasons, in the U.K. edition, we are redacting most of one page with some other small redactions and an explanatory note. Those sections are a very small part of a much bigger story.”
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Following the news of the redaction, a spokesperson for Baron Cohen shared in a statement, “Harper Collins did not fact check this chapter in the book prior to publication and took the sensible but terribly belated step of deleting Rebel Wilson’s defamatory claims once presented with evidence that they were false.”
The statement continued, “Printing falsehoods is against the law in the U.K. and Australia; this is not a ‘peculiarity’ as Ms. Wilson said but a legal principle that has existed for many hundreds of years. This is a clear victory for Sacha Baron Cohen and confirms what we said from the beginning — that this is demonstrably false, in a shameful and failed effort to sell books.”
On Thursday, Rebel Rising‘s release day in the U.K., Wilson shared a new statement on her Instagram Story, writing, “I want to thank all the people who have come forward and acknowledged my experiences with Sacha Baron Cohen. Thank you for sharing your own stories with me. I am so grateful to you and really appreciate it.”
Last month, Baron Cohen’s spokesperson denied any allegations of on-set turmoil, writing in a statement at the time, “While we appreciate the importance of speaking out, these demonstrably false claims are directly contradicted by extensive detailed evidence, including contemporaneous documents, film footage and eyewitness accounts from those present before, during and after the production of The Brothers Grimsby.”
However, Wilson has previously hinted at friction and disagreements over her role in the 2016 comedy. She reportedly told the radio show Kyle and Jackie O in 2014 while filming the movie, “Sacha is so outrageous. Every single day he’s like, ‘Rebel, can you just go naked in this scene?’ And I’m like, ‘No!’ Sacha and I have the same agent in America, and I’m like, ‘Sacha, I’m going to call our agent Sharon and tell her how much you are harassing me.'”
Updated April 25 at 11:43 a.m.: Wilson’s Instagram Story post.
