Before the Australian actress and comedian Rebel Wilson publicly announced her new relationship, an Australian celebrity columnist had given her reps less than two days to comment before publishing a column about the new couple.
In a now-deleted column published Saturday in The Sydney Morning Herald, columnist Andrew Hornery said that instead of Mrs Wilson, 42, he “exercised caution” and gave her representatives two days to comment on her relationship with Ramona. Agruma, a designer, “before publishing a single word.”
“In a perfect world, ‘going out’ with same-sex celebrities should be a redundant concept by 2022,” wrote Mr Hornery. “Love is love, right?”
“Big mistake,” Mr Hornery said in the deleted column, adding that Ms Wilson “chose to overlook the story” by first revealing her relationship on Instagram.
The column drew criticism online from Ms. Wilson’s fans, other journalists and members of the LGBTQ community, who say the decision to come out and when to do so is a personal one. While Ms. Wilson had previously shared pictures of herself with Ms Agruma online, she had not publicly shared that they were dating.
In the Instagram post, Ms. Wilson, who is known for her roles in “Bridesmaids” and “Pitch Perfect,” shared that she was in a relationship with Ms Agruma, the founder of a Los Angeles fashion brand.
“I thought I was looking for a Disney prince… but maybe what I really needed all along was a Disney princess,” Ms. Wilson said in the post, which was over 1.8 million times. liked”.
A representative for Ms Wilson declined to comment Monday and Ms Agruma did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Ms. Wilson took note of the online criticism tweeted on sunday that “it was a very difficult situation”, but that she “tried to handle it with grace”.
Mr Hornery, who is gay, wrote in his ‘Private Sydney’ celebrity column on Saturday that Ms Wilson’s ‘choice to ignore his ‘discreet, candid and honest questions was disappointing in our opinion’.
“Of course it’s their business who anyone dates, but Wilson happily nurtured such a lecherous interest when she had a handsome boyfriend,” wrote Mr. Hornery, clearly referring to Jacob Busch, a descendant of the family who ran the American brewing company. Anheuser founded. -Busch.
In a new column published Monday, Mr. Hornery that the newspaper had “mishandled steps in our approach” and that the original column had been removed from The Morning Herald’s website. The new column was headlined, “I’ve made mistakes about Rebel Wilson and I’ll learn from them.”
“I am sincerely sorry that Rebel has found this difficult,” wrote Mr Hornery. “That was never my intention. But I see she handled it all with extraordinary grace. As a gay man, I am well aware of how deep discrimination hurts. The last thing I would ever want to do is hurt someone else.”
When asked to comment, Mr Hornery said on Monday that he had nothing more to add than what he wrote in his column. Attempts to reach The Sydney Morning Herald on Monday were unsuccessful.
In a statement, Cathy Renna, a spokeswoman for the National LGBTQ Task Force, said that “not coming out on your own terms can be challenging personally and professionally, even if it’s a positive, celebratory, inspirational act like Wilson’s coming out post.” was for so many.”
“While we see a generation of young people – and most people – cheering and then moving on with their lives when a celebrity comes out, we know there is still anti-LGBTQ sentiment and reaction that can affect our lives in many ways. “, she said. †
Aryn Fields, a spokeswoman for the human rights campaign, said the decision to come out is “a very personal choice”.
“Each of us deserves the opportunity to come out on our own terms — and if that wasn’t true for Rebel Wilson, it should have been,” said Ms. Fields.
In his new column, Mr Hornery said he reached out to Ms Wilson’s management via email on Thursday morning to ask them to comment on the relationship, noting that his deadline was 1 p.m. Friday. He said he had several sources confirming the relationship but asked for comment “in the interest of transparency and fairness”.
The next morning, Mrs. Wilson shared her Instagram post.
“I got no response, which was entirely Rebel’s right,” wrote Mr Hornery. He said the newspaper would be more careful with stories about people’s sexuality in the future. “It’s not the Herald’s job to take people ‘out’ and that’s not what we wanted to do. But I understand why my email is seen as a threat. The framing of it was a mistake.”
But Mr Shields wrote that “to say the Herald has ‘outed’ Wilson is wrong.”
He said the columnist “simply asked questions and included a response deadline by default”.
“I hadn’t made a decision on whether or not to publish,” Mr Shields wrote, saying he would have considered her response. “Wilson has made the decision to disclose her new partner, who has been a feature of her social media accounts for months.”
