The release of actress Rebel Wilson's autobiography has been pushed back in the UK and Australia.
Rebel Rising was published in the US on Tuesday, and was due out in Australia on Wednesday and the UK on Thursday. It will now reach the UK on 25 April. Publisher HarperCollins said its release “has been moved to coincide with Rebel Wilson's press tours”.
The book includes allegations against Sacha Baron Cohen, who is understood to have threatened legal action. The British comedian has vehemently denied any impropriety, saying her description of shooting his 2016 film Grimsby is “demonstrably false”.
The Australian star told the Sunday Times making the spy comedy was “the worst professional experience of my career”. In the book, she wrote that she was asked to do some things that were “derogatory to women or to my size”, and some scenes made her feel like she was “being humiliated” and “sexually harassed”.
She likened Baron Cohen to a “fourth-grade bully who teases the fat girl on the playground and tries to make her life a living hell”.
Wilson played the girlfriend of Baron Cohen's character in the film, which was known as The Brothers Grimsby in North America.
Baron Cohen's lawyers have said the evidence shows her allegations have “no basis in reality” and are part of a “cynical commercial ploy to promote her book”. They have supplied video footage of one scene in question, plus email exchanges, script excerpts and testimony from producers and crew members, which his lawyers say back up his case.
In a statement, Baron Cohen's spokesperson said: “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.”
Last week, the Daily Mail published outtake video footage from one of the scenes she described. She claimed the release of the “unauthorised and misleading” footage was “bullying and gaslighting me”. Wilson will go on tour to promote it in Edinburgh, Manchester and London on 24, 26 and 29 April respectively.
She will then move on to Australia, visiting Sydney, Brisbane and Melbourne on 9, 12 and 14 May. In an appearance on Kelly Clarkson's US TV talk show on Tuesday, she said the “book itself is obviously not about this one guy”, adding: “Like, that is one thing in one chapter.”
Baron Cohen made his name with a brazen brand of comedy, including audacious pranks carried out while disguised as spoof gangster Ali G or fake Kazakh journalist Borat.
