Rebel Wilson’s memoir chapter on Sacha Baron Cohen has been redacted in UK copies

Rebel Wilson is one of the most talked-about women of the moment, with her brand new memoir, Rebel Rising, already a best seller. 

The highly-anticipated book follows the comedic actress' life from childhood to present day, recounting obstacles and challenges that she has faced along the way, particularly in the entertainment industry. 

The memoir became a major talking point last month after its US publication, due to the 44-year-old's claims about actor and comedian, Sacha Baron Cohen, on the set of the 2016 film, The Brothers Grimsby.

In the chapter entitled "Sacha Baron Cohen and other Assholes", Wilson writes about her experience working with the actor and his alleged "inappropriate" behaviour on set, claiming that it left her feeling "bullied, humiliated and compromised".

Sacha Baron Cohen has denied the claims and called those made in the memoir "demonstrably false".

As the UK edition of Rebel Rising is published today, the passage including Wilson's words about Sacha Baron Cohen has been redacted, condensed to three lines:

“What followed was the worst experience of my professional life. An incident that left me feeling bullied, humiliated, and compromised. It can’t be printed here due to peculiarities of the law in England and Wales.”

A spokesperson for HarperCollins has addressed the redactions, telling The Guardian: “We are publishing every page, but for legal reasons, in the U.K. edition, we are redacting most of one page with some other small redactions and an explanatory note. Those sections are a very small part of a much bigger story.”

Sacha Baron Cohen's representatives have also commented on the redactions, releasing the following statement: 

“Harper Collins did not fact check this chapter in the book prior to publication and took the sensible but terribly belated step of deleting Rebel Wilson’s defamatory claims once presented with evidence that they were false. Printing falsehoods is against the law in the UK and Australia; this is not a ‘peculiarity’ as Ms Wilson said, but a legal principle that has existed for many hundreds of years.”

“This is a clear victory for Sacha Baron Cohen and confirms what we said from the beginning — that this is demonstrably false, in a shameful and failed effort to sell books.”

We will continue to update this story.

Rebel Rising by Rebel Wilson is available to buy now.