Rebel Wilson went public with her new relationship after being threatened with being outed (Picture: rex / @rebelwilson)
Rebel Wilson has spoken out about a newspaper threatening to out her for having a same-sex relationship in June for the first time.
The actress, 42, had gone public with her relationship with girlfriend Ramona Agruma at the start of June, sharing a sweet photo of the two of them together.
However, it later emerged that the Sydney Morning Herald had approached Rebel for comment before planning to ‘out’ her first relationship with a female in an article.
The publication faced backlash after columnist Andrew Hornery complained that Rebel had ‘gazumped’ the story by going Instagram-official instead.
Rebel had never spoken about the incident until now, telling The Australian: ‘I just thought it was kind of grubby behaviour.
‘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.’
Rebel had gone public with Ramona on Instagram sooner than the pair planned (Picture: @rebelwilson)
Prior to Ramona, Rebel’s last relationship was with Jacob Busch, whose family founded the brewing company Anheuser-Busch.
The pair went Instagram-official in November 2020, but confirmed the following February that they had split.
After Rebel’s post, Andrew Hornery wrote in a column: ‘It was 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 another woman, LA leisure wear designer Ramona Agruma, before publishing a single word.
The couple didn’t have a chance to tell everyone in person (Picture: Instagram/Rebel Wilson)
‘Big mistake. Wilson opted to gazump the story, posting about her new “Disney Princess” on Instagram early Friday morning, the same platform she had previously used to brag about her handsome ex-boyfriend, wealthy American beer baron Jacob Busch.’
The journalist later apologised and the article was retracted after facing intense backlash from fans.
Rebel had shared a small comment at the time, when a different journalist tweeted: ‘So apparently it wasn’t Rebel Wilson’s choice to come out… The SMH admitted to giving her a heads-up 2 days in advance that they were going to ‘out’ her. What’s worse, openly gay men at the Sydney Morning Herald were involved in this.’
The actress responded at the time: ‘Thanks for your comments, it was a very hard situation but trying to handle it with grace.’
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A newspaper was planning to break her first same-sex relationship before she went public with it.