Rebel Wilson expressed her gratitude to her supporters and other women who she said have “shared their stories” about working with Sacha Baron Cohen after her allegations against the actor were redacted in the U.K. publication of her new memoir.
In her book “Rebel Rising,” the 44-year-old actress made shocking claims about Baron’s behavior toward her during filming of the 2016 movie “The Brothers Grimsby,” which he has strongly denied. The unredacted memoir was published in the U.S. by Simon & Schuster on April 2. A spokesperson for her U.K. publisher HarperCollins confirmed to People magazine that some passages had been blacked out in the British edition, which was released on Thursday.
Wilson stood by her statements as she posted a photo on her Instagram story on Wednesday night, which was taken in Edinburgh, Scotland, during the first stop on her book tour.
“I want to thank all the people who have come forward and acknowledged my experiences with Sacha Baron Cohen,” Wilson wrote on the image.
Rebel Wilson’s shocking claims about Sacha Baron Cohen were redacted in the U.K. edition of her new book “Rebel Rising.” (Getty Images)
“Thank you for sharing your own stories with me,” she added. “I’m so grateful to you and really appreciate it.”
SACHA BARON COHEN DENIES REBEL WILSON’S CLAIM HE WAS AN ‘A–HOLE’ ON MOVIE SET
Wilson’s lawyer Bryan Freedman echoed her sentiments in a joint statement to Fox News Digital on Thursday.
“Rebel and I want to thank all the women who have shared their stories with us about their experiences with Sacha Baron Cohen. We are grateful for their strength and bravery,” he said.
A representative for Harper Collins told People, “We are publishing every page, but for legal reasons, in the U.K. edition, we are redacting most of one page with some other small redactions and an explanatory note.”
The statement continued, “Those sections are 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.”
Wilson thanked her supporters in a post to her Instagram Story. (Rebel Wilson Instagram)
On Thursday, the U.K. outlet The Guardian reported that the entire chapter about the “Borat” star, titled “Sacha Baron Cohen and Other A–holes,” was redacted in the Australia and New Zealand editions, which are set to be published on May 8.
According to the outlet, the U.K. edition included an explanatory note that Wilson’s version of events in the chapter “can’t be printed here due to peculiarities of the law in England and Wales.”
A spokesperson for Cohen, 52, told Fox News Digital, “Harper Collins 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 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. 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.”
Pages in the U.K. edition were blacked out with an explanatory note added. (Getty Images)
In “The Brothers Grimsby,” Wilson and Cohen starred together as a husband and wife of nine kids. Later, Wilson accused Cohen of “harassing” her on the movie set during a radio show interview, according to Variety.
She alleged that Cohen repeatedly asked her to appear naked in a scene and eventually hired a body double for the nude scene after she refused.
Wilson also accused Cohen of telling her to “stick [her] finger up [his] butt” while filming the last scene, despite the move not being included in the script.
In her memoir, the actress detailed her experiences while working with Cohen, describing how uncomfortable she felt while filming “The Brothers Grimsby.”
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“The movie bombed, which to me was karma enough,” Wilson wrote in “Rebel Rising,” according to People.
“I’m not about canceling anybody and that’s not my motivation for sharing this story,” she added. “I’m sharing my story now because the more women talk about things like this, hopefully the less it happens.”
Wilson accused Cohen of “harassing” her on the movie set during a radio show interview, according to Variety. (Kevin Mazur/Getty Images)
A representative for Cohen denied her claims, telling Fox News Digital, “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.’”
After Cohen denied the allegations, Wilson insisted that she was telling the truth, saying she was “humiliated and degraded as a person” on the movie set.
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“That was something that happened 10 years ago, and obviously I’ve moved past it now, but it was my worst professional experience,” she admitted in an April 1 interview on “Today.”
“Just feeling humiliated and degraded as a person, I just thought it’s worth sharing in the book because there’s probably a lot of people out there that have had the same experiences,” she continued.
Wilson also claimed that since her allegations about Cohen’s behavior have been getting attention, “I’ve had a lot of women reach out and say that they’ve had similar experiences with this guy.”
Wilson claimed that Cohen harassed her on the set of their 2016 movie. (Lisa Maree Williams/Getty Images for Opera Australia)
Prior to the release of “Rebel Rising,” Wilson spoke about the chapter of her book dedicated to Cohen on social media. She originally neglected to name names, instead referring to him as an “a–hole” that she’d worked with, but after he allegedly attempted to stop her from publishing her book, she called him out directly.
“I will not be bullied or silenced by high priced lawyers or PR crisis managers,” Wilson wrote on her Instagram story at the end of March. “The ‘a–hole’ that I am talking about in ONE CHAPTER of my book is: Sacha Baron Cohen.”
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During her interview with “Today,” Wilson admitted she wasn’t surprised that Cohen is denying her accusations against him, saying, “Obviously, knowing his character, I assumed he would react in this way.”
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“Writing a memoir, the book gets fully legally vetted,” she explained, “so obviously there are tons of people to back what I’m saying in the book, the book is 100% honest and truthful.”
Fox News Digital’s Emily Trainham and Elizabeth Stanton contributed to this report.
