Rebel Wilson seemed to think the media frenzy around her account of working with Sacha Baron Cohen on “The Brothers Grimsby” was overblown in an interview Tuesday.
“The book itself is obviously not about this one guy,” she told talk show host Kelly Clarkson. “Like, that is one thing in one chapter.”
The actress sat with the original “American Idol” on Tuesday’s “The Kelly Clarkson Show” to discuss her new memoir, “Rebel Rising.” Soon enough, the host asked her about the hubbub around her highly publicized allegations against Cohen making the rounds.
“So a lot of the focus, annoyingly so, has been on one chapter, Chapter 23,” Clarkson began. “For me, as even a songwriter, when I come out with an album, I’m always afraid that they’re going to focus on one song, and it’s a whole body of work. … What is that like? How do you navigate that?”
“I thought having a chance to write a memoir, I’m just going to be totally open and honest about things that happened to me, and that chapter, Chapter 23 in the book if you get it, it’s just about the biggest a–hole I worked with in Hollywood,” Wilson explained. “And so it’s what happened to me, but the book itself is obviously not about this one guy. That is one thing in one chapter.”
Wilson added that aside from featuring “funny stories” in her career, the memoir, out Tuesday, also “covers so many areas like weight and losing weight, and my relationship with food and sexuality, and fertility issues and the whole relationship with my father, and it’s just like, it’s about so many more things.”
Still, the headlines the memoir’s grabbed have been about Chapter 23, its allegations of sexual harassment on the set of “Grimsby” and Cohen’s alleged efforts to block the release of the memoir.
“I will not be bullied or silenced by high priced lawyers or crisis PR managers,” the actress wrote on Instagram on March 24, teasing the revelations to come. “The ‘a–hole’ that I am talking about in one chapter of my book is: Sacha Baron Cohen.”
Wilson and Cohen starred together in the 2016 comedy “The Brothers Grimsby,” directed by Louis Leterrier. In the video posted to Instagram about the chapter, Wilson twice calls Cohen “a massive a–hole.”
One instance of alleged misconduct on set — as detailed in resurfaced interviews from around the 2016 release — saw Cohen requesting that Wilson stick a finger up his butt while filming. In another, Cohen allegedly insisted on Wilson stripping nude for a scene — a bit that ultimately went to a body double.
In the days since the content of the chapter have been made public, Wilson has accused Cohen of making her feel “humiliated and degraded as a person” on the “Grimsby” set and has said he’s been “bullying and gaslighting her” over the course of the memoir’s release.
Cohen vehemently denies all accusations of wrongdoing.
“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,’” a spokesperson for Cohen told TheWrap.
Elsewhere in her interview with Clarkson, Wilson admitted that baring it all in the pages of her memoir has been a trying experience and that she will probably “go private for like eight to 10 years” after this press tour.
“I share so much in the book that I’m like, after this, I’m going to go to a log cabin with Ramona and the baby,” she said. (Ramona Agruma is Wilson’s partner.)
Watch a clip from the Rebel Wilson “Kelly Clarkson Show” interview in the video above.
