Tragic Details About Rebel Wilson

The following article contains allegations of sexual harassment.

Rebel Wilson is known to American audiences for her many roles in such iconic films as "Bridesmaids" and the "Pitch Perfect" franchise. Long before, the actor got her start in her native Australia, making a name for herself in shows like "Pizza" and "The Wedge." Still, Wilson's stunning transformation into a bona fide star did not come quickly or easily, and she nearly had to be pushed into the limelight by her concerned mother. Wilson, the oldest of four, was painfully shy and her family was turbulent at times. She also struggled with her weight, even though her size was an asset when booking gigs for American audiences.

With her sunny smile and subversive sense of humor, you would never know Rebel Wilson faced so many obstacles in Hollywood and beyond. She's had some truly outlandish experiences, some of which inspired her to succeed, and others that tested her strength and resolve. But through it all, the actor has prevailed.

Rebel Wilson is a comedic actor with a larger-than-life persona, so it's difficult to imagine that she was ever uncomfortable around strangers. However, when Wilson was growing up in the suburbs of Sydney, Australia, she was so incredibly shy that it turned into a serious problem. The actor spent a lot of time alone and isolated herself because of her social anxiety, which worried her mother. Her mother's solution? Acting classes.

Wilson was not a fan of the idea at all but had little say in the matter. The 14-year-old was dropped off at an acting class where she was surrounded by an enthusiastic group of aspiring thespians. "It was so embarrassing," Wilson shared with the Los Angeles Times. "I'm there. My face is red from crying. My mom has left. I'm stuck for the next 90 minutes," she said. But then something amazing happened that would change Wilson's life. "The teacher came up and asked me my name, and I said, 'Hi, I'm Rebel,' in an American accent. It was the only way I could deal with this traumatic situation," she explained. "I became a character instantly. And then I just started making stuff up."

Rebel Wilson has said that she and her siblings, sisters Liberty and Annachi and brother, Ryot, were extremely well-behaved as children, but that didn't stop their father from lashing out at times. Wilson spoke on the "Diary of a CEO" podcast about her father's anger issues and how they affected her when she was growing up. "He was so angry all the time, and money was a source of fighting in the household," the actor explained.

She recalled a time in her youth when she and her siblings poured water in their beds in an attempt to cool off during the hot Australian weather — something that invoked her father's wrath. "It was like a switch would flick and he'd just go really angry and would just start whacking us," she revealed. The tension in Wilson's household left a lasting impression on her, especially when it came to her self-esteem. As she told she told People in March 2024, "I think it probably led to not having good self-worth, and also thinking you had to be good all the time."

In 2013, Wilson's father died from a heart attack. The actor had made peace with him by that point and wrote him a letter that she put in his pocket after he died. Wilson shared the letter in her memoir, "Rebel Rising," which read, in part, "I want you to know that I forgive you. I will strive to find love, I will no longer be afraid of it."

Like many people, Rebel Wilson has a fear of insects; however, her anxiety stems from a frightening experience she had as a teenager. While she was living in Africa during a gap year, she contracted an infectious and potentially fatal mosquito-bornedisease. "When I was 18, I got malaria. I woke up one morning in an African bush and I had like 100 mosquito bites on my face," she told Us Weekly. "I was in hospital for two weeks. I could have died from it, it was very, very bad," she added.

Wilson's brush with death had a life-changing side effect on the future actor. "I was in hospital hallucinating. ...I hallucinated that I was an actress and that I was really great and I win an Academy Award," Wilson explained to host Jimmy Fallon on "The Tonight Show." She went on to say that it was so vivid that she could see herself even giving an acceptance speech (which she rapped, by the way). Wilson left the hospital with the goal of becoming an actor, although she didn't quite have the support of those around her. "Everyone was like, 'Uh, no, we think your malaria has demented your brain," she said.

While Rebel Wilson emerged from a near-death experience with the determination to become an actor, she soon realized it wasn't going to be as easy as she'd expected. Wilson attempted to study acting seriously and set her sights on Australia's National Institute of Dramatic Art — only to be rejected by the school a soul-crushing five times. "When some people would say, 'But how did you keep going?,' or 'You always seemed to have this self-belief,' I would go, 'Because I saw it happen,'" Wilson explained to The New York Times, referring to her hallucination of fame.

It turned out Wilson really did have the stamina to make her dream a reality. She auditioned for close to 30 different roles before finally landing the part of Brynn in 2011's runaway hit "Bridesmaids." On Sirius XM's "The Jess Cagle Show," Wilson explained that she originally auditioned for Melissa McCarthy's role in the film but ended up playing Brynn instead. "I guess they liked my audition and added me into the film, essentially, so there was never supposed to be two roommates, only one," Wilson revealed. "So, I just kind of added myself in, in a way, to the scenes."

Rebel Wilson spent plenty of time in her life feeling unhealthy and attempting to lose weight. She admittedly has a sweet tooth and has said that she tried fad diets at different points but didn't see lasting results. The actor came to realize that some of the weight she'd gained was due to the pressure that comes along with fame. "I think what I mainly suffered from was emotional eating," Wilson shared on "The Drew Barrymore Show," "and dealing with the stress of becoming famous internationally, there is a lot of stressful stuff that comes with it, and I guess my way of dealing with it was just by eating donuts."

Wilson decided that she needed to take a holistic approach to weight loss and work on "the mental side of things," including looking within to discover why she wasn't valuing herself more and learning to have a better sense of self-worth. According to the actor, turning 40 was empowering for her and helped her take control not just of her weight but her career and overall health.

After achieving success on the big screen, having made memorable appearances in the films "Bridesmaids" and "Pitch Perfect," Rebel Wilson made the move to American TV. In 2013, she led the ABC sitcom "Super Fun Night that was executive produced by Conan O'Brien. It centered around three girlfriends who decide to go out every Friday night in an attempt to overcome their awkwardness.

Wilson created the concept of the show and penned the pilot, but it was frustrating bringing the show to life. "The people who bought it keep telling me, 'You can't say that. And you can't do that,'" Wilson explained to Vulture. To remind herself why the show was important, the actor wrote her mission on a sticky note, which read, "The bigger purpose in all of this is to inspire girls who don't think they're socially all that—who don't think they're pretty and popular. To let them know they can have fun and exciting lives."

Despite winning a People's Choice Award for Favorite New TV Comedy, the sitcom was canceled after just one season. Wilson was understandably disappointed and took to social media to share her reaction to the news. "Found out my TV show 'Super Fun Night' got cancelled ... am singing sad songs in my car right now ... it's sad!" she posted on X (via The Daily Telegraph).

Throughout her career, Rebel Wilson has embodied characters who were confident in their size. Fat Amy in "Pitch Perfect" is a perfect example of the kind of role Wilson excelled at playing. "When I'm playing Fat Amy ... I'm all about attitude," the actor told Vulture, adding that her size worked in her favor as she was starting out. "When I first walked into my agency, WME, they signed me because I was distinctive," she said. "I didn't look like every other girl in L.A., and they liked that. I looked like someone an audience could relate to." That turned out to be a double-edged sword, though.

As Wilson explained in her memoir, "The agency liked me fat because they got hundreds of thousands of dollars in commission for each film where I played the fat funny girl." She worried that she'd been pigeonholed and that losing weight would work against her. It seemed Wilson's instincts were correct, even people on Wilson's team didn't fully support her health journey. "There were some people that were like, 'Oh, we don't think she's funny anymore,' or, 'Now she's lost me as a fan because I can't relate to her anymore,'" she told The New York Times.

In 2021, Rebel Wilson opened up about a terrifying experience she endured while visiting Mozambique with a group of women. Wilson told host Ant Middleton of "Straight Talking" that she was briefly kidnapped by men with guns while on her vacation. "They took us to this house in the middle of nowhere," Wilson said. She went on to reveal that she felt she handled the situation well, emerging as the leader of her group. "They sat us down. I said, 'everybody link arms'. I'm petrified in the night they might want to take one of the girls or something. Luckily, we weren't harmed," she said.

When she and her group were told they could leave, they did so without question. "We got back on that truck and just got back out of there and then crossed the South African border a few hours later," she said. As for why she and the other women were targeted, Wilson has a theory: "I think maybe those guys used us to smuggle illegal things in the bottom of the truck." Wilson did not specify when the event occurred but told the story in response to a question about the scariest situation she'd ever been in.

In June 2022, Rebel Wilson shared the news that she was in a relationship with Ramona Agruma, founder of clothing brand Lemon Ve Limon, via Instagram. Wilson captioned a photo of the cute couple, writing, "I thought I was searching for a Disney Prince... but maybe what I really needed all this time was a Disney Princess." She included heart and rainbow emojis and the hashtag #loveislove. While this post didn't raise any red flags, Wilson's coming out story was far from fair. The actor was pushed to go public with her new relationship by an Australian media outlet. The Sydney Morning Herald admitted they'd given the actor a deadline to comment on her relationship with Agruma, insinuating they were going to publish the information themselves if Wilson didn't. "It was with an abundance of caution and respect that this media outlet emailed Rebel Wilson's representatives on Thursday morning, giving her two days to comment on her new relationship with LA leisure wear designer Ramona Agruma, before publishing a single word," the publication wrote. "Big mistake. Wilson opted to gazump the story, posting about her new 'Disney Princess' on Instagram" (via Us Weekly).

Wilson returned to social media after her initial announcement to comment on the situation. "Thanks for your comments, it was a very hard situation but trying to handle it with grace," the actor tweeted (via People). Despite the uncomfortable situation, Wilson truly had found love. She and Agruma tied the knot in September of 2024 in a gorgeous ceremony on the Italian island Sardinia.

In November 2022, Rebel Wilson and her partner Ramona Agruma welcomed the birth of their miracle baby. Daughter Royce Lillian Elizabeth Wilson was born via surrogate, and her moms were over the moon with joy. But the journey to motherhood was a difficult one, wrought with devastation.

The first obstacle came when Wilson was told by her doctor that her weight might be an issue when it came to harvesting her eggs. "He looked me up and down and said, 'You'd do much better if you were healthier,'" the actor told People. "I was taken aback. I thought, 'Oh God, this's guy's so rude.'" But it was a wake-up call, and Wilson embarked on a dramatic weight loss journey to get healthier for the sake of her future child. Nevertheless, additional difficulties followed.

Wilson, who has polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS), learned that the eggs she had frozen did not survive the thawing process. "So, I'd lost a huge amount of weight and been through 3 surgeries at that point and no viable embryos," she told People. "It was devastating." Eventually, there would be a viable pregnancy, and Wilson decided a surrogate would be the best option. "With just one embryo, I decided to go with surrogacy," she shared with Today. "Physically I could have carried the baby, but there was a much higher statistical chance it would work with surrogate." Luckily, everything went well, and Wilson's posts on Instagram show what a proud mama she is.

In her 2024 memoir, "Rebel Rising," Rebel Wilson dropped a bombshell when she alleged that Sacha Baron Cohen sexually harassed her while the two were filming the 2016 film "The Brothers Grimsby." "It felt like every time I'd speak to SBC, he'd mention that he wanted me to go naked in a future scene. I was like, 'Ha, I don't do nudity, Sacha,'" Wilson wrote. Apparently, the awkwardness didn't stop there. Wilson wrote that Cohen asked her to film an additional scene and things got truly uncomfortable. "Then he pulls his pants down. ... SBC says very matter-of-factly: 'Okay, now I want you to stick your finger up my a**.' And I'm like, 'What?? ... No!!'" the actor revealed.

Wilson continued working on the film after her agent and lawyer encouraged her to "be professional" and tried to simply laugh it off, but once the experience was over, she got more clarity. "It really sank in that all this wasn't something that could be laughed off. I relayed to the producers that I would not be doing any promotion for the film," she wrote. The movie tanked, which Wilson sees as karma, but makes clear in her book that her goal wasn't to cancel anybody. "I'm sharing my story now because the more women talk about things like this, hopefully the less it happens," she wrote.

As for Cohen, he fervently denied Wilson's claims. In March 2024, his rep released a statement to Variety labeling Wilson's comments as "demonstrably false claims."

If you or anyone you know has been a victim of sexual assault, help is available. Visit the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network website or contact RAINN's National Helpline at 1-800-656-HOPE (4673).