Rebel Wilson claims she was harassed by male co-star
Reviews and recommendations are unbiased and products are independently selected. Postmedia may earn an affiliate commission from purchases made through links on this page.
Article content
Rebel Wilson has claimed she was harassed by a male co-star.
Article content
The 42-year-old actress is starring in Netflix film ‘Senior Year’ and insisted she wanted to make sure there was a lot of “respect” for her younger co-stars on set as she alleged she had been the victim of sexual harassment years earlier.
She said: “I wanted to bring the hilariousness and the heart [to ‘Senior Year’] but because there’s a lot of young cast in the film, I wanted to make sure there’s a lot of respect for everybody. [Years ago, a male co-star], he called me into a room and pulled down his pants. It was awful and disgusting.”
The ‘Pitch Perfect’ stars – who stars alongside budding actors Joshua Colley, 20, and Avantika Vandanapu,17, in the comedy which sees her 37-year-old character head back to high school – went on to explain that the incident happened before the #MeToo movement against sexual abuse in 2017 and that her co-star had tried to “destroy her career.”
Article content
Without naming her co-star, she told PEOPLE: “And all the behavior afterwards — this was all before #MeToo — where they kind of tried to destroy me and my career. If it had happened after #MeToo, then I could have just blasted them.
However, Rebel – who trained as a lawyer before turning to acting – made sure to “document” the alleged incident at the time and insisted that while the behaviour was “gross”, other women have had it “worse.”
She said: “Because I’m a lawyer, I documented it. I called my rep. I got certain things in writing about what happened. Definitely amongst industry circles, I made sure people knew what happened.
“Why did I stay in that situation … with that awful guy? I should have left. It wasn’t worth it. But at the same time, I was like, ‘Oh well, do the right thing, be a professional and finish the movie.’ Now I would never do that.”
I thought even complaining to my agency was a big step. And to complain to the studio. I found out I was like the fourth person to complain about the guy. Such gross behavior, but a lot of women have had it way worse.”