NEW YORK – About five years ago, when she was 39, Australian actress Rebel Wilson faced a dilemma.

She had just had a string of successes, having made US$20 million (S$27 million) for her comic roles in Pitch Perfect 3 (2017), Isn’t It Romantic (2019) and The Hustle (2019).

But a visit to a fertility doctor had filled her with self-doubt.

Her weight – then about 102kg – could make it harder to retrieve viable eggs, the doctor suggested. After the appointment, she was devastated and called her talent agent, and said she planned to get healthier.

Her agent was not thrilled.

“The agency liked me fat because they got hundreds of thousands of dollars in commission for each film where I played the fat funny girl,” she writes in her new memoir Rebel Rising.

Losing weight, she worried, could jeopardise her “multi-million-dollar pigeonhole”.

In Rebel Rising, which Simon & Schuster released on April 2, Wilson details her struggles with food addiction and writes with disarming candour about intimate episodes from her life.

Raised in a suburb of Sydney, Australia, as the eldest of four, Wilson had an unconventional childhood: Her family ran a pet product business and bred show beagles, and she had her first brush with show business as a junior dog handler when she was eight.

Success did not come easily. She was rejected five times from Australia’s National Institute of Dramatic Art, and auditioned for nearly 30 screen roles in Hollywood before she was cast in the 2011 comedy Bridesmaids, a performance that launched her film career.

The memoir has already generated controversy, particularly her account of making the 2016 comedy Grimsby – released in the United States and Canada as The Brothers Grimsby – with Sacha Baron Cohen.

Wilson writes that during filming, the English actor-comedian made her uncomfortable by asking her to appear nude in the film (they hired a body double instead).

She also alleges that he urged her – when they were in character and filming a sex scene – to stick her finger up his rear end, which she refused to do, while others who were present recorded the encounter on camera phones.

Through a representative, Baron Cohen, 52, has denied Wilson’s account.

“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,” a representative of Baron Cohen said in a statement.

There are also stunningly personal revelations in Rebel Rising. Wilson writes about being a late bloomer who lost her virginity at 35. She details her secret romantic relationship with a female professional tennis player, her experience of meeting and falling in love with her fiancee – fashion entrepreneur Ramona Agruma – and having a baby with a surrogate.

In a recent interview in midtown Manhattan, Wilson spoke about how her weight loss has affected her career and public image, and fighting for her Pitch Perfect 3 payday.

Have you experienced any negative repercussions or backlash from the weight loss?

There were some people who were, like, “Oh, we don’t think she’s funny any more” or “Now she’s lost me as a fan because I can’t relate to her any more”.

But I think if they read the book, they will understand my journey with weight and health. Obviously, I have a sweet tooth. That is my vice. And in times of stress, I’d dealt with it by eating. I don’t think that will ever go away.

Which parts of your memoir are you most anxious about going public with?

The part about losing my virginity at 35. That was something that absolutely nobody knew. And I was, like, “Should I put it in the book?” But then I thought, “Maybe there will be other people out there who were late bloomers who might find solace in that fact about me.”

Because really, there was nothing weird or wrong with me. It was just growing up in a very Christian background, and then not really wanting a relationship and focusing on my career. And then I thought: “If I’m doing a memoir and writing about everything, I’m just going to put that here as well.”

Probably the biggest headlines out of the book so far have been your description of working with Sacha Baron Cohen, who you say humiliated you on set. He has disputed your account and, recently, footage of the scene that was not in the movie and which shows you acting out the sex scene together in character, has been published by The Daily Mail. What do you make of his response?

I’m sure they are never going to release the iPhone footage of him asking me to do it, to insert my finger up his a**, and me saying, “No, why are you doing this? Why are you asking me to do this? Where’s the director?” Of course, they are not going to release that footage.

What is your response to his denial?

Just knowing his character, I obviously expected that. I knew he was not going to take it, proverbially, lying down. This is not about cancelling someone. It is part of my story – my memoir. And I’m allowed to write about what happened to me and how that made me feel.

You are very frank about money and describe how you were able to negotiate US$10 million for Pitch Perfect 3 after you learnt that the studio did a market research survey that showed how much people loved your character Fat Amy.

Universal Studios are incredible, but did they make a ton of money from the Pitch Perfect movies? Yes. So, despite me absolutely loving all those folks at Universal, did I use that leverage to my advantage? Yes. And in the eleventh hour, I go, “You know, that’s a lovely offer of US$9 million. But I need one more to make it 10.”

That’s a big milestone when you’re an actor. To receive an eight-figure offer, for a woman, is huge. Sometimes, women don’t like to talk about that. Whereas I don’t think the guys have any issues saying they get US$20 million a movie.

You also write about a strange experience that inspired you to seriously pursue acting, when you were living in South Africa and got malaria and had a vision.

It was a full-blown hallucination that I was an actress and I had won an Academy Award. It changed the whole trajectory of my life. When some people would say, “But how did you keep going?” or “You always seemed to have this self-belief”, I would go, “Because I saw it happen.”

I clung to that, despite the constant rejections and how hard it was, starting in the theatre and performing when there might be 10 people in the crowd. But I saw it, that I was going to be successful. And coming to America, I mean, the odds of making it in the entertainment business, first in my own country, then in Hollywood – I think the odds are better that if I were a guy, I could make it to the NFL. It’s millions and millions to one, but I thought I was the one. There are plenty of Australian actors who are way better than me and haven’t made it over here.

Maybe because they did not get malaria.

They didn’t have the malaria vision. NYTIMES