Rebel Wilson breaks her silence on being outed by Australian newspaper
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Featured Image Credit: Hyperstar/Alamy Live News. rebel.wilson/Instagram
Rebel Wilson has broken her silence on the moment when an Australian newspaper essentially forced her to reveal she was in a relationship with a woman.
The Aussie actor spoke to The Australian on how she felt compelled to publicly announce her relationship with Ramona Agruma because Sydney Morning Herald gossip columnist Andrew Hornery was threatening to out her.
“I just thought it was kind of grubby behavior,” Wilson told the outlet.
“Basically, with the situation where a journalist is threatening to out you, you’ve got to hurry, and some people we didn’t get a chance to tell before it came out publicly.
"And that’s not ideal.”
In June, the Pitch Perfect star posted to social media that she had finally found her ‘Disney princess’ after years of searching for a ‘prince’.
While she was praised by many on social media, Wilson said she felt forced to share the news after Hornery reached out to representatives for comment before publicly outing her in a story.
On June 12, she wrote on Twitter: “Thanks for your comments, it was a very hard situation but trying to handle it with grace.”
Thanks for your comments, it was a very hard situation but trying to handle it with grace 💗
— Rebel Wilson (@RebelWilson) June 12, 2022
Despite writing an article to defend himself - which has now been removed from the Sydney Morning Herald's website - Hornery has now apologized for his actions.
In his piece titled ‘I made mistakes over Rebel Wilson, and will learn from them’, the journalist admitted that he ‘mishandled’ the situation and that being a gay man himself, he would never intentionally inflict this kind of pain.
Hornery said that as Rebel was posting sharing snaps of herself at Pride events, he mistakenly thought that she would be comfortable disclosing her new relationship to the world.
He wrote: “I assumed there was a good chance she might be happy to discuss it. She had already revealed a month ago that she had been dating and was very happy.”
He also explained that he reached out to her management via email for comment before publishing his story but never received a response.
And while it wasn’t meant to feel like a ‘threat’, the framing of his message was a ‘mistake’.
Hornery added: “The Herald and I will approach things differently from now on to make sure we always take into consideration the extra layer of complexities people face when it comes to their sexuality.”
