Rebel Wilson’s memoir has been released in the UK in a redacted version, with Sacha Baron Cohen’s legal team claiming it as a “clear victory”.
The book, titled Rebel Rising, was published in the UK yesterday (April 25), following its release in the US and other territories earlier this month.
However, the chapter titled “Sacha Baron Cohen and Other A**holes” has been edited to remove the direct allegations about the British comic actor’s behaviour, which he has strenuously denied.
In the original version of the memoir, the Australian actor spoke about her experience of working with Baron Cohen on the 2016 comedy film The Brothers Grimsby, in which she played his character’s girlfriend.
“It felt like every time I’d speak to SBC, he’d mention that he wanted me to go naked in a future scene,” she recalled. “I was like, ‘Ha, I don’t do nudity, Sacha.’”
The Pitch Perfect star described one alleged incident in detail: “SBC summons me via a production assistant saying that I’m needed to film an additional scene. ‘Okay, well, we’re gonna film this extra scene,’ SBC says.
“Then he pulls his pants down … SBC says very matter-of-factly: ‘Okay, now I want you to stick your finger up my ass.’ And I’m like, ‘What?? … No!!’ …”
She continued: “I was now scared. I wanted to get out of there, so I finally compromised: I slapped him on the ass and improvised a few lines as the character.”
Wilson says she then spoke to a lawyer and her agent about the incident. “I filmed the scene, after demanding rewrites. But I still had to simulate having sex with this guy. I still had to kiss him repeatedly.”
“It really sank in that all this wasn’t something that could be laughed off. I relayed to the producers that I would not be doing any promotion for the film.”
However, in the UK version, this passage is replaced by a reference to “the worst experience of my professional life. An incident that left me feeling bullied, humiliated and compromised.”
“It can’t be printed here due to the peculiarities of the law in England and Wales,” she continues. The chapter also includes black lines redacting other passages.
Baron Cohen responded by denying the initial accusations. A statement by his representatives read: “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.”
Baron Cohen’s reps also provided anonymous statements in support of his response from nine people involved in the film, five of whom claim they witnessed the incident and dispute Wilson’s accusations.
In response to this UK redacted release, his team have stated to Deadline: “HarperCollins 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.”
“Printing falsehoods is against the law in the UK 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.”
Earlier this week, Wilson also revealed details about the time in 2014 when she was allegedly invited by a member of the British royal family to a drug-filled orgy in Los Angeles.
“I got thrown a last-minute invite to a tech billionaire’s party,” she wrote. “The guy who invited me, who’s like 15th or 12th in line to the British throne, had said to my male friend, ‘We need more girls.’”