Rebel Wilson
has addressed attempts by an Australian newspaper to ‘out’ her, saying she’s
handling the “hard” situation “with grace”.
The Pitch
Perfect star revealed on Instagram Thursday (9 June) that she is in
a relationship with fashion designer Ramona Agruma, gushing
that she finally found her “Disney Princess”.
However, it
hasn’t all been a Disney fairytale for Wilson. A Sydney Morning Herald article
written by columnist Andrew Hornery and published on Saturday (11 June)
revealed that the newspaper planned to run a story on Wilson’s new relationship before
she could address it on her terms, effectively ‘outing’ her as queer to the
public.
Wilson broke
her silence about the horrible situation on Twitter on Sunday (12 June), and
admitted that it has been a “very hard” time.
“Thanks for
your comments, it was a very hard situation but trying to handle it with
grace,” she tweeted, adding a simple heart emoji to the post.
Hornery wrote
in the original opinion piece, which has since been removed, that
the outlet emailed Wilson’s representatives and gave her “two days to comment
on her new relationship with another woman”.
It would
appear that instead of letting the newspaper reveal her relationship, Wilson
announced it via social media.
Hornery moaned
that in doing this, Wilson had “gazumped” him, and called giving her warning of
his story a “big mistake”.
His comments
prompted immense outrage on social media, and many people voiced their
disgust that the Sydney Morning Herald would out someone
before they were ready to share their truth with the world.
Amid fierce
backlash, the Sydney Morning Herald’s editor Bevan Shields
told PinkNews that the outlet “simply asked questions” and
“included a deadline for a response”.
Shields added:
“To say that the Herald ‘outed Rebel Wilson is wrong.”
Hornery wrote
in a new column, published Monday (13 June), that he didn’t seek
to “out” the actor but understood why his email giving Wilson a deadline for
comment could have “been seen as a threat”.
He admitted
that he made mistakes in his approach to the reporting and said he learned some
“new… difficult lessons from this”.
“I genuinely
regret that Rebel has found this hard,” Hornery wrote. “That was never my
intention.”
He continued:
“But I see she has handled it all with extraordinary grace.
“As a gay man
I’m well aware of how deeply discrimination hurts. The last thing I would ever
want to do is inflict that pain on someone else.”
Hornery
promised in the piece that he and the Sydney Morning Herald will
“approach things differently from now on” to ensure that both take into
“consideration the extra layer of complexities people face when it comes to
their sexuality”.
“We still have
to ask questions, sometimes very difficult ones,” Hornery said.
“It would be
much worse to write gossip items about the unscripted events in their lives
without them having a chance to have their say. But we need to make it clear
that a deadline is not an ultimatum.”
SOURCE: PINK NEWS
I only saw the news of her IG post, didn't know all of this was goin' on behind the scenes... If they didn't "push" Rebel, she probably wouldn't have published that photo, at least not now. 🤷♂️
ReplyDelete