Does Rebel Wilson read Celebitchy? If she does… hey, girl. I’m glad you backed down. As we discussed yesterday, Rebel Wilson dug herself in deeper when she made a mistake. It happens to the best of us – we’ll make a mistake and instead of just apologizing and correcting ourselves, we just dig in deeper. In Rebel’s case, it all started when she introduced the trailer for her new rom-com, Isn’t It Romantic, on The Ellen Show. Rebel told Ellen: “I’m proud to be the first-ever plus-sized girl to be the star of a romantic comedy.” People were like “er, Mo’nique and Queen Latifah.” And instead of just saying “holy crap, I totally forgot about Latifah and Mo’nique,” Rebel started blocking all of the black film critics and pop culture writers who tried to correct her. What could have been a teachable moment about black erasure turned into a far-ranging incident of black erasure.
At first, Rebel started slowly, by replying directly to Mo’Nique calling her out:
Hi Monique, it was never my intention to erase anyone else’s achievements and I adore you and Queen Latifah so so much x I support all plus size ladies and everything positive we are doing together ❤️
— Rebel Wilson (@RebelWilson) November 3, 2018
Then Monday evening, Rebel finally backed down and apologized for everything:
In a couple of well-intentioned moments, hoping to lift my fellow plus sized women up, I neglected to show the proper respect to those who climbed this mountain before me like Mo’Nique, Queen Latifah, Melissa McCarthy, Ricki Lake and likely many others.
— Rebel Wilson (@RebelWilson) November 5, 2018
With the help of some very compassionate and well-thought out responses from others on social media, I now realize what I said was not only wrong but also incredibly hurtful. To be part of a problem I was hoping I was helping makes it that much more embarrassing & hard to-
— Rebel Wilson (@RebelWilson) November 5, 2018
acknowledge. I blocked people on Twitter because I was hurting from the criticism, but those are the people I actually need to hear from more, not less. Again, I am deeply sorry.
— Rebel Wilson (@RebelWilson) November 5, 2018
I’m glad she apologized and I’m glad she also acknowledged that she was blocking black critics on Twitter. That being said… Rebel Wilson is a 38 year old woman. She knows better. She could have come out on Twitter within hours of her mistake and simply said, “I screwed up, of course there were other amazing plus-sized romantic leads before me. MY BAD.” No one expects everyone to be perfect 100% of the time, but we do expect people to be capable of admitting it when they make a mistake.
Photos courtesy of WENN.
She’s too old…and too privileged to not project a persona of intelligence and empathy regarding this foundational topic, I mean…her CAREER is built on THIS! My money and time is too precious to waste on grown folks who don’t act grown…
I’m good luv….enjoy…
I can’t stand her. She acts like she is the only plus-size woman who ever made it in any career. And she apologised after a LOT of backlash.
I have never liked her either!!! I hope she stops being shoved in our faces now (moreso than Amy Shumer) because I’m tired of her.
Kaiser should’ve highlighted the best part of this whole saga, when she questioned if Queen Latifah, Monique etc were even plus size LOL
She’s not even good of a actress enough to pull of all this arrogance. The movie will be a flop.
@Char
Hopefully it will bomb. And I usually support female-led movies regardless of the genre but not the ones lead by a racist. Sorry no.
Agreed. And she didn’t apologize, her publicists and the movie studio forced her to apologize.
As far as celebrity apologies go, this one isn’t bad. I’m glad she also acknowledged the blocking – I honestly didn’t expect her to address that.
To my ear it sounds like it was written for her by a PR person. She may have these sentiments, but this line in particular — “I blocked people on Twitter because I was hurting from the criticism, but those are the people I actually need to hear from more, not less.” — is pure PR lackey cleaning up Rebel’s mess.
She was a lawyer before she started acting. I believe she wrote the apology. She also owns the rights to every character she plays.
She never practiced law.
Agreed. I thought it was pretty good and would have been great had it been earlier. I mean, what was she thinking blocking people?? She had to acknowledge that. Ugh, it really is the worst when a bunch of people come at you online. I could never be a famous, I would go crazy from all the hate on social media
edited to add–Bella Bella is probably right, and it wasn’t written by her at all
This is exactly what she needed to say. It came a little later than it should have, but at least she acknowledged that she was hurt by the backlash and not ready to hear the (fair) criticism right away. It seems like this really did turn into a teachable moment for Rebel and likely others as well.
Rebel, rebel.
We all make mistakes. I think rebel couldn’t handle the overwhelming about of corrections she received.
Glad she womaned up and apologized.
ah entitlement and privilege. i don’t think she apologized out of any guilty conscience – she ought to have done that before blocking people like a door slamming, tantrum throwing teenager. No, she apologized because she has a new movie coming out and because bottom line, it’s all about the money
Yeah, while I think her apology was better than many, I can’t help but feel it’s ultimately about damage control.
Decent apology. I’m glad she addressed the blocking. May she continue to do better.
Now the rest of the press junket will be based on this.
It was just for the trailer release. The movie doesn’t come out until Valentine’s Day, so it’ll be forgotten about by then unless she says some other dumb thing.
I’m so glad she was able to cut and paste into Twitter something that was written for her by her studio’s PR person…
I mean, that’s literally how public apologies work so I’m not sure what else is expected?
People just like piling on. It’s sport.
I’m with Chaine.
lol, ok. A simple, “My bad you’re right. S/O to those trailblazers. Hopefully, you all look back as fondly on my movie coming out…” like 2 days ago when it happened would’ve solved this.
She alienated the folks that would’ve been receptive to her movie.. lol Good luck on your flop, ma’am.
Glad she apologized coz I feel bad for her costars. I like Adam Devine. Adam Devine > Adam Levine.
I think she was very excited about her role and spoke out of a pocket a bit, not intentionally and not to hurt anyone. She panicked at the backlash and blocked people out of emotion for her mistake. She issued the apology that we were all hoping for. Of course her PR was involved because that is how this all works. I’m sure she learned from this.
I root for people who don’t fit the Hollywood mold, and I was ready to pull for her, but every time I’ve seen her on Graham Norton (who seems to love her and book her a lot) she’s just totally turned me off. But as mentioned in the comments yesterday, the final draw was mocked police brutality at the MTV awards a few years ago. Tasteless and cruel to those who have suffered from that.
I don’t think she’s funny, I don’t think she’s a good actress. And the only part of her I enjoyed in Pitch Perfect 3 was when she wore that tight silver dress and looked too much like a foil-wrapped baked potato. She’s made a career of “I’m loud, I’m crude and I’m fat.” Okay, but none for me, thanks.
I have never understood why this woman is a thing. I can’t stand stupid gross-out humor or movies about gaggles of singing twits, so that’s probably why I don’t “get” her schtick.
Nope. You’re missing the tweets where she said it’s a gray area whether Queen Latifah and Mo’nique were “plus sized” during their movies and also whether or not they were solo leads. She did everything she could to hold onto her claim, focusing on black twitter and no mention of how Ricki Lake wasn’t a lead or plus sized. I think those responses were much more telling than her well crafted apology.
*sigh* My God, how hard would that have been to do from the start? Pride gets in our way too often.
Where celebrity apologies go, this one is actually pretty good. Actually, I take that back – for an apology in GENERAL, this is pretty good. She acknowledges that she f*cked up. She acknowledges how she f*cked up. She acknowledged that she needed to do better. Whether she had somebody help her or not, we’ve seen plenty of celebrities with PR staff at their disposal do far worse. I’m letting her off lightly with this one. If it happens again, we have a different story, but we can’t expect people to grow if we’re going to sh*t all over the attempts of people who do apologize and admit error.
She has always been problematic for me. If your weight is the most interesting thing about you, there isn’t much substance there. I love the Pitch Perfect movies, but completely loathe the whole “Fat Amy” thing. If she had any real comedic chops, her weight wouldn’t be the core of every. single. punchline.