An entire chapter from Rebel Wilson’s memoir will be redacted for legal reasons when it hits Australian book shelves next month.
The Australian Hollywood actor’s memoir, Rebel Rising, was due to be published in Australia and New Zealand earlier this month. However, the date of publication was pushed back to May 8 when fellow actor and former co-star Sacha Baron Cohen accused Wilson of publishing defamatory material.
The accusations sparked from Chapter 23 of her book, titled “Sacha Baron Cohen and Other Assholes”, where she details her experience working with Baron Cohen. Wilson claims he was a “massive asshole” when they worked together on the 2016 film The Brothers Grimsby.
The chapter was published in the US release of the memoir on April 2, but HarperCollins Australia confirmed in a statement to the media that “legal reasons” not only delayed publication in Australia and New Zealand, but resulted in several redactions.
“For legal reasons we have redacted one chapter in the ANZ edition and included an explanatory note accordingly,” HarperCollins Australia wrote.
“That chapter is a very small part of a much bigger story and we’re excited for readers to know Rebel’s story when the book is released, on Wednesday 8 May.”
The Australian version of Rebel Rising is set to be the most redacted version of Wilson’s memoir in the world.
The UK edition of the book was released on Thursday, reportedly with almost a page redacted “due to peculiarities of the law in England and Wales”, a note at the start of the book reads.
In a statement to media, Baron Cohen’s legal team said HarperCollins “did not fact check” the chapter of the memoir in question and the publishing house “took the sensible but terribly belated step” of making the changes to the book.
“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,” the statement reads.
“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.”
What’s the story?
Last month, Wilson made a statement on Instagram saying she would “not be bullied or silenced with high priced lawyers or PR crisis managers”, naming Sacha Baron Cohen as the “massive asshole” in her book.
It’s not the first time Wilson has spoken about her experience working with Sacha Baron Cohen, or her experiences dealing with sexual harassment in Hollywood.
In 2014, on Kyle and Jackie O’s radio show, Wilson described several moments during the filming of The Brothers Grimsby where she alleged Baron Cohen was harassing her. In 2017, during the #MeToo movement on social media, Wilson tweeted about her experience with sexual harassment in Hollywood.