Rebel Wilson has shared more details about her experience working on the 2016 action-comedy “The Brothers Grimsby.”
In a recent interview with The Sunday Times, Wilson said she felt “disrespected on set,” but didn’t speak up at the time out of fear of being labeled a “troublemaker.”
“It turned out to be the worst professional experience of my career,” she added.
Wilson played Dawn Grobham, the girlfriend of Sacha Baron Cohen‘s dimwitted character Nobby. On social media, the “Pitch Perfect” star alluded to a “massive a**hole” whom she had once worked with that’s been trying to stop her from publishing her upcoming memoir “Rebel Rising”; she revealed on Monday that it was Baron Cohen.
“I will not be bullied or silenced with high priced lawyer or PR crisis managers,” Wilson wrote in an Instagram update. “The ‘a**hole’ that I am talking about in ONE CHAPTER of my book is Sacha Baron Cohen.”
In addition to starring in “The Brothers Grimsby,” Baron Cohen served as a co-writer and producer.
Wilson told The Sunday Times that she believed her “Brothers Grimsby” costumes were chosen to “see all the cellulite on my thighs and a top to show the fattest part of my arm…like I was something to be laughed at and degraded because of my size.”
She added: “It’s one thing for someone who is fat to exploit their size for comedy, but it’s another for somebody else to humiliate you.”
Baron Cohen denied Wilson’s claims that he’s been attempting to prevent her from publishing her memoir, which includes a chapter that exposes his inappropriate behavior.
“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,’” Baron Cohen said in a statement to Variety through a spokesperson.