Rebel Wilson Says She ‘Won’t Be Bullied’ Into Leaving ‘Asshole’ Sacha Baron Cohen Out of Memoir
Rebel Wilson is speaking out against Sacha Baron Cohen again after revealing that she lambasts his behavior in her upcoming memoir, Rebel Rising.
“Thanks so much to everyone who has sent gorgeous messages of support in the last few days and to those who shared with me their stories of this asshole!” Wilson, 44, wrote via her Instagram Story on Tuesday, March 26. “Don’t worry I won’t be bullied or threatened by this guy! And am working behind the scenes to make sure my book comes out!”
The actress added that the tell-all, which is due out Tuesday, April 2, is “not about” Baron Cohen, 52, explaining, “This is one chapter."
The drama began on Friday, March 22, when Wilson claimed that a then-unnamed “asshole” was trying to “stop press [from] coming out” about Rebel Rising.
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“I wrote about an asshole in my book. Now, said asshole is trying to threaten me,” she wrote via her Instagram Story at the time. “He’s hired a crisis PR manager and lawyers. … But the book WILL come out and you will all know the truth.”
The Pitch Perfect star subsequently identified Baron Cohen as the individual she was referring to.
“The ‘asshole’ that I am talking about in ONE CHAPTER of my book is Sasha [sic] Baron Cohen,” Wilson wrote via her Instagram Story on Monday, March 25.
That same day, a rep for Baron Cohen addressed the controversy in a statement to Us Weekly.
“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,” the spokesperson said, referring to the 2016 film which Baron Cohen and Wilson starred in together.
Wilson previously accused Baron Cohen of harassment after filming wrapped on The Brothers Grimsby.
“Sacha is so outrageous. Every day he’s like, ‘Just go naked, it will be funny.’ And I’m, like, ‘No!’” Wilson claimed during a 2014 appearance on Australian radio’s Kyle and Jackie O Show. “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.’”
She then claimed that Baron Cohen made another inappropriate request when filming the final scene of the movie.
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“He was like, ‘Rebel, can you just stick your finger up my butt?’ And I went, ‘What do you mean, Sacha? That’s not in the script,’” she alleged. “And he’s like, ‘Look, I’ll just pull down my pants, you just stick your finger up my butt, it’ll be a really funny bit.’”
Wilson shared a similar story via X in 2017, although she didn’t identify Baron Cohen by name at the time.
“A male star, in a position of power asked me to go into a room with him and then asked me repeatedly to stick my finger up his ass," she wrote in the since-deleted post. "All whilst his male ‘friends’ tried to film the incident on their iPhones and laughed. I repeatedly said no and eventually got out of the room."