Rebel Wilson praised for memoir “helping” fan with body dysmorphia

Rebel Wilson became emotional recently while hearing about the impact of her new memoir, Rebel Rising.

The Pitch Perfect star spoke with Chris Evans on his Virgin Radio UK show on Wednesday (May 1), where she discussed her highly anticipated new memoir, which has now officially been published.

While on the show, Wilson was able to hear directly the impact of her book on a reader, as one of Evans’ team members, named Vassos, shared with them a personal story.

Vassos spoke with Wilson about how her book had helped support his friend, who had suffered with body image issues.

He explained how he had been reading a segment of the book where Wilson writes a letter to her body. “Within a minute” Vassos got a phonecall from his friend, who “always had issues with body dysmorphia”. He said: “She’s on that first hot day of the year and she’s panicking and I said, look, it will… things will. You know, you will find the bridge off this.”

Upon hearing the story, Wilson became emotional and responded: “Can I just say thank you so much for reading and, you know, engaging this and to me, like it, even if this book just reaches 10 people, and people find motivation and things to change parts of their life because I’ve obviously had to change.”

Vassos praised Wilson for including this advice and support alongside the anticipated Hollywood anecdotes, saying: “That really helped her. So there’s all the top like, showbiz stories as well but there’s but there’s real help, too.”

The Australian actor, who has written in depth about her weight loss journey and the alleged limits placed on her body image throughout her career, responded: “Vassos thank you for saying that because, like, that really is why I… And I know I’m getting emotional, but, that’s why I wrote it, because I know there’s so many people that relate to that kind of stuff.”

“And, and I know what it’s like to, you know, be invisible, be visible, like, to, be concerned about your weight, to gain weight, to lose weight, to be feeling all sorts of things with your body,” she continued.

“So I could write about it in quite a lot of detail in the book to try to help people and make feel them less alone.”

Elsewhere in the memoir, Wilson had originally made a number of accusations about the behaviour of Sacha Baron Cohen, which the Borat star denied.

Now, with the book’s UK release, it has now been edited to remove any direct allegations about the actor, which his legal team are calling a “clear victory”.