Podcast host Meshel Laurie has come out swinging at Rebel Wilson over a story in the movie star’s book she felt was about her, and it’s hardly a hero arc.
Speaking on her Can We Be Real? show alongside Simon Baggs, the former Aussie TV personality said she was made aware of a certain narrative in Wilson’s Rebel Rising memoir that accused her of asking the actress for handouts.
Importantly, she noted the two had met in the 90s but were not close or friendly.
“I’m sure it was about you, I can’t think of anyone else it could possibly be about,” Laurie’s friend Donna had told her after hearing a passage from Wilson’s audiobook.
To which she replied, “Now that I’ve heard it, I agree with her.”
The host then played the sound bite of Wilson recalling her “overnight” fame following the release of Pitch Perfect — and it’s damning effects.
Wilson claimed it wasn’t just paparazzi wanting a piece of her, but anyone with her “email or phone number” — including those who didn’t want a bar of her before in her previous life.
Without being called out by name, it was Laurie’s unique former workplace that set off alarm bells as Wilson recited the passage.
“’Oh you’re on a billboard, I saw you on TV’, ‘Hi, I’m thinking of coming to LA, can I stay with you?’ ‘You’re the best, I always loved you, bye!’” Wilson read.
“Umm, well no. Seeing as you weren’t really my friend and now you work the reception desk at a brothel. I’m not going to reply to you but I still feel guilty for saying no.”
Baggs then asked Laurie to spill on whether she’d ever reached out to Wilson for free accommodation.
“Did you email her?” he asked. “To say, ‘can I stay with you in Los Angeles?’”
“No! I’ve only ever been to L.A. once, it was with a radio station that took me and Tommy Little and believe me, we stayed at The Roosevelt, love. I didn’t need to stay at someone’s house,” Laurie insisted.
“I’ve never had her phone number or her email.”
Enraged by the assumption Wilson had called her out indirectly, Laurie said after years in the industry she had never met anyone else who had worked at a brothel.
“It sounds like it’s meant to be me,” she said.
Putting her “ego” aside, Laurie then considered the chance of someone else having lived a parallel life in the entertainment industry and not being aware of them.
“I was gonna’ say, you should feel guilty about making up this f****** bull**** story about me and putting it in your book,” she said after listening to the recording again.
“Maybe it’s about someone else. It has to be, cos’ it’s not about me.
“But it does annoy me that people like Donna will have heard this, and gone, ‘oh, that’s so sad. Meshel Laurie’s pretended to be her friend’.”
Wasting no time in shutting down the speculation, Wilson attempted to clear the air with a statement provided to News.com.au.
“I am absolutely NOT referring to Meshel Laurie in that segment or my book nor in any segment of my book. I am referring to a friend who I took acting classes with at the Australian Theatre for Young People,” Wilson said.
Not the first time her book has ruffled feathers, Wilson’s memoir has outed Mickey Gooch Jr as the person who took her virginity.
The star also famously copped backlash from Sacha Baron Cohen for threatening to detail alleged inappropriate behaviour on the set of The Brothers Grimsby.