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Home / Entertainment

Rebel Wilson’s memoir explores allegations against comedian Sacha Baron Cohen

NZ Herald
28 Mar, 2024 04:39 AM3 mins to read

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New details have been revealed in excerpts of Rebel Wilson's new memoir, Rebel Rising, about the star's allegations against comedian Sacha Baron Cohen. Photo / AP

New details have been revealed in excerpts of Rebel Wilson's new memoir, Rebel Rising, about the star's allegations against comedian Sacha Baron Cohen. Photo / AP

New information has been revealed about allegations put forward by actor Rebel Wilson against British comedian Sacha Baron Cohen in her new memoir, Rebel Rising, set to be released later this year.

Wilson, 44, left the public shocked this week after she made the revelation that Baron Cohen was the man she has been singling out on her social media accounts as the “a**hole” with an entire chapter dedicated to him.

Extracts from Wilson’s memoir have begun to emerge now, bringing attention to her purported experiences with the comedian while they filmed the movie Grimsby, which was released as The Brothers Grimsby in North America, together nearly a decade ago.

On the set of the 2016 film, Wilson alleges Baron Cohen repeatedly asked her to strip “naked” to shoot a scene, reported People.

“It felt like every time I’d speak to SBC [Baron Cohen], he’d mention that he wanted me to go naked in a future scene. I was like, ‘Ha, I don’t do nudity, Sacha’,” she wrote in the memoir.

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The Australian-born actor then wrote about how the situation allegedly escalated while they were shooting scenes for Grimsby at a football stadium in Cape Town, South Africa.

“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 a**.’ And I’m like, ‘What??... No!!’

“I was now scared. I wanted to get out of there, so I finally compromised: I slapped him on the a** and improvised a few lines as the character,” Wilson said.

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Baron Cohen has rejected Wilson’s claims surrounding what occurred while on set together. The comedian’s team gave People a statement denying the allegations while also providing anonymous statements from others who were part of the film.

Rebel Wilson says her experiences on set left her to take on a “no a**holes” policy for herself when it came to future film projects. Photo / AP
Rebel Wilson says her experiences on set left her to take on a “no a**holes” policy for herself when it came to future film projects. Photo / AP

“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 eye witness accounts from those present before, during and after the production of The Brothers Grimsby,” Cohen’s representatives said in their statement.

Earlier this year, before it was revealed that Baron Cohen was the “a**hole” in question, Wilson discussed the memoir’s chapter and how the alleged experiences left her to take on a “no a**holes” policy for herself when it came to future projects.

“When I first came to Hollywood, people were like, ‘Yeah, I have a no-a**holes policy that means, like, I don’t work with a**holes’. I was like, ‘Yeah, I mean, that sounds sensible and logical’.

“But then it really sunk in what they were meaning by that, older people in the industry. Because I worked with a massive a**hole, and, yeah, now I definitely have an a**holes policy. Chapter on said a**hole - it is chapter 23, that guy was a massive a**hole.”

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