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Rebel Wilson‘s memoirs, Rebel uprisinghit bookshelves in the US earlier this month, but doesn’t arrive in the UK until Thursday April 25th – in multiple installments Sacha Baron Cohen were redacted. In the originally published version it was the 44-year-old Pitch perfect The franchise actress dropped several bombshell lawsuits against the 52-year-old comedian.
“We publish every page, but for legal reasons, in the UK edition we redact most of a page with some other small redactions and an explanation,” a HarperCollins spokesperson said in a statement obtained by PEOPLE. “These sections are a very small part of a much larger story, and we look forward to readers learning Rebel’s story when the book is published.”
A representative for Baron Cohen also sent a statement to the medium, claiming that the publisher “failed to fact-check this chapter in the book prior to publication” and that HarperCollins “took the sensible but woefully late step of rejecting Rebel’s defamatory claims.” Wilson once. “Evidence was presented that they were false.”
“Printing falsehoods is unlawful in the UK and Australia; This is not a “special feature,” as Ms. Wilson said, but a legal principle that has existed for many hundreds of years,” the representative added. “This is a clear victory for Sacha Baron Cohen and confirms what we have said from the start – that this is demonstrably false, in a shameful and failed attempt to sell books.”
In her memoir, Rebel accused Sacha of sexual harassment. While they were working on their spy comedy together, Grimsby (also known as Brothers Grimsby), the Australian native accused Sacha of showing her a nude scene out of nowhere.
“It felt like every time I spoke to SBC he mentioned that he wanted me to be naked in a future scene,” she claimed in an excerpt from the original version. “I thought, ‘Ha, I don’t do nudity, Sacha.'”
Rebel also recalled an alleged incident when Sacha sent a production assistant to tell her that she was “needed to film an additional scene.”
“‘Okay, well, we’re going to film this extra scene,’ says SBC,” Rebel claimed. “Then he pulls down his pants. SBC says very matter-of-factly, “Okay, now I want you to stick your finger up my ass.” And I’m like, ‘What?? … NO!!'”
In response, an anonymous producer defended Sacha and the production team in a statement obtained by PEOPLE.
“According to the script that Rebel read and approved in advance, her character tried to stick a finger up Sacha’s character’s ass,” the producer claimed. “At no point did Sacha actually ask her to put a finger up his butt. Throughout this time she has been treated with the utmost respect and confidence and welcomed as a collaborator in all creative areas.”