Wilson tells PEOPLE in this week’s issue that she hopes people “find some inspiration” in her new memoir, ‘Rebel Rising’
Karwai Tang/WireImage; Simon & Schuster
Rebel Wilson and her new memoir
Rebel Wilson is opening up about her past, and sharing details about her rollercoaster life, in her very personal new memoir.
The Pitch Perfect star, 44, has written an intimate memoir, Rebel Rising, which hits shelves on April 2, to share her experiences in her own words.
Recalling how she was often called “brave” in her early days in Hollywood, she tells PEOPLE, “Did I fight in war? Run into a burning building? No. It was that I dared to exist in a town where only thin women were valued.”
Wilson also reveals details of her childhood in Australia, her relationship with her fiancée Ramona Agruma, her fertility journey and some harrowing moments for her career. She shares her story “with the hope that people might find some inspiration. Maybe some people thought it was brave, but I was just being myself.”
Here are the biggest bombshells from Wilson’s memoir Rebel Rising.
Wilson’s father could be explosive at times
Samir Hussein/WireImage
Rebel Wilson
When reflecting on her childhood, Wilson writes that her parents, Sue and Warwick Bownds, worked on the dog show circuit and her family was, she says, “one baby step above being carnies.” She experienced a difficult relationship with her volatile father, including, as she writes, “30 seconds of terror” one day, when she and her sister, Liberty, wet their mattresses with water to cool down during a hot summer in Australia.
“Dad comes in. ‘What the hell are you two doing?!’ He brings his palm up and hits me. Whack. He hits my sister too,” she writes. As the eldest, Wilson says that she was hit the hardest.
After Wilson’s father died from a heart attack in 2013, Wilson wrote him a letter that she tucked into his pocket. She forgave him and wrote that she would “strive to find love” and “no longer be afraid of it.”
She filmed Bridesmaids during ‘one of the loneliest years’ of her life
Suzanne Hanover/Universal Pictures/Courtesy Everett
Rebel Wilson in ‘Bridesmaids’
Wilson writes that the period of filming Bridesmaids was “one of the loneliest years of my life,” and that after she paid her rent, she only had $60 left to live on. After the movie’s premiere, she describes how she went back to her one-bedroom apartment in Los Angeles and ate in front of the television in her pajamas.
Related: Rebel Wilson Shows Off the ‘Bridesmaids’ Ring Director Sent Her for Movie’s 10-Year Anniversary
“I remove my makeup and take out the hairpieces,” she writes. “I look at myself in the mirror. ‘See, women are funny!’ I say to myself. Then I head to the freezer, pull out a pint of ice cream and celebrate by eating in front of the TV in an oversize Disneyland nightie until I can’t stay awake anymore.”
The star didn’t have sex until she was in her 30s
Gareth Cattermole/amfAR/Getty
Rebel Wilson
Wilson didn’t lose her virginity until she was 35, she reveals in the book, and she was initially “terrified” when it came to physical intimacy.
“I was either so innocent, in my teens, or so busy making myself look grotesquely unattractive for comedic purposes, that no romantic opportunity ever presented itself,” she writes. The book also details her relationship with a producer named “Mickey,” whom she met via a set up and with whom she became intimate while filming How to Be Single.
“Mickey flew in that weekend,” she writes. “And then it just happens. I finally have sex. It feels amazing. I go to the bathroom and high-five myself. I like my new wild sexual self.”
She writes about feeling humiliated by Sacha Baron Cohen
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Rebel Wilson and Sacha Baron Cohen
Wilson writes about her experience working with Sacha Baron Cohen on the 2016 movie The Brothers Grimsby. She says she felt humiliated by the comedian, 52, and claims that he asked her to perform a lewd act while they were making the movie in South Africa. Baron Cohen vehemently denies ever saying that or mistreating Wilson.
His rep said in a statement: “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.”
Wilson writes, “The movie bombed, which to me was karma enough. I’m not about canceling anybody and that’s not my motivation for sharing this story. I’m sharing my story now because the more women talk about things like this, hopefully the less it happens.”
Wilson experienced fertility struggles before her daughter arrived
Rebel with her daughter, Royce, and fiancee, Ramona
Wilson writes that in 2020, a fertility doctor told her if she lost weight, she would have a better chance of harvesting quality eggs. But even after losing 80 pounds, a fertility doctor told her that the embryos she’d created with a sperm donor didn’t “appear strong enough” to be viable. “I feel such sadness,” she writes. “I’m so alone and I don’t know what to do.”
After another round of egg-harvesting, her “last viable embryo” was implanted in a surrogate. Wilson welcomed daughter Royce Lillian in November 2022, with her fiancée Ramona Agruma by her side.
“She opens her eyes, and she looks at us,” Wilson writes of the birth of her daughter. “We’re a family now.”
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Rebel Rising is out April 2 from Simon & Schuster and is available for preorder now, wherever books are sold.
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Laura Davis is an entertainment aficionado who delves into the glitz and glamour of the entertainment industry. From Hollywood to Broadway, she offers readers an insider’s perspective on the world of movies, music, and pop culture.
