A passage in Rebel Wilson’s memoir where she details an alleged negative experience working with Sacha Baron Cohen on The Brothers Grimsby has been redacted in the UK, Australia, and New Zealand editions.
Before the release of memoir Rebel Rising, Rebel claimed that a then-unnamed actor — later revealed to be Sacha — was “trying to threaten” her and “stop press coming out about [her] new book.”
The book was published in full in the US earlier this month and included a chapter titled “Sacha Baron Cohen and other assholes,” where Rebel made several claims about her time on the 2016 set. Amongst them, she alleged that Sacha repeatedly pressured her to perform nude on screen and to perform a lewd sex act in a room with his friends.
New images of the UK edition of the book, released yesterday, show that a significant portion of Sacha’s chapter has been blocked out:
Above the blacked-out portion reads, “What followed was the worst experience of my professional life. An incident that left me feeling bullied, humiliated, and compromised. It can’t be printed here due to peculiarities of the law in England and Wales.”
A spokesperson for Sacha told Deadline, “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.”
Rebel’s attorney told Deadline that she maintains her version, stating, “Rebel and I want to thank all the woman who have shared their stories with us about their experiences with Sacha Baron Cohen. We are grateful for their strength and bravery.”
You can read more about the excerpt here.