Comedian Sacha Baron Cohen is responding to Rebel Wilson’s claims that he was a “massive asshole” who threatened to stop her book from being published.
“I wrote about an asshole in my book. Now, said asshole is trying to threaten me,” Wilson wrote in an Instagram story on March 15. “He’s hired a crisis PR manager and lawyers. He’s trying to stop press from coming out about my book. But the book WILL come out and you will all know the truth.”
The Pitch Perfect star, who played Cohen’s wife in 2016’s The Brothers Grimsby, name dropped him as the “asshole” she had been referring to via social media over the weekend.
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“I will not be bullied or silenced by high priced lawyers or PR crisis managers,” Wilson wrote on her Instagram story on Sunday. “The ‘asshole’ that I am talking about in ONE CHAPTER of my book is: Sacha Baron Cohen.”
“While we appreciate the importance of speaking out, these demonstrably false claims are directly contradicted by extensive detailed evidence, including contemporaneous documents, film footage, and eyewitness accounts from those present before, during and after the production of The Brothers Grimsby,” Baron Cohen told The Daily Beast on Monday through a spokesperson.
In a previous interview around the time of that film’s release, Wilson accused Baron Cohen of “harassing” her on-set, including pressure to “go naked” herself instead of using a body double, upon which she ended up insisting, and telling her to “stick your finger up my butt,” despite the gag not appearing in the script.
The actress will apparently elaborate on the incidents in her new memoir, Rebel Rising, which arrives on Tuesday, April 2. Before naming Baron Cohen, she said the “asshole” in question was “trying to threaten” her and “stop press from coming out” about the book.
