An Australian newspaper has removed a column about Rebel Wilson while a journalist admitted ‘mistakes were made’ in reporting on the star’s new relationship.
On Friday the Pitch Perfect star revealed she was in a relationship with a woman, saying she’d found her ‘Disney Princess’ and declared #loveislove.
And while she was supported and celebrated by friends, famous followers and fans after the sweet post, in which she was seen cosying up to partner Ramona Agruma, it later transpired an Aussie newspaper had been planning to publish details of the new romance and had given Rebel just two days’ notice to comment on her new relationship.
Before the Sydney Morning Herald could publish, though, Rebel shared a selfie with Ramona, with beaming smiles on their faces, in a move SMH gossip columnist Andrew Horney complained ‘gazumped’ his article in a follow-up piece on Saturday.
The reaction was swift and scathing on social media, with many saying it was unacceptable in 2022 to put pressure on people to come out.
However after the paper’s editor, Bevan Shields, denied the publication ‘outed’ the star, Hornery admitted on Monday he had ‘learnt some new and difficult lessons’ amid the backlash, and revealed his earlier piece will be taken down.
He wrote on Monday: ‘I genuinely regret that Rebel has found this hard. That was never my intention. But I see she has handled it all with extraordinary grace. As a gay man I’m well aware of how deeply discrimination hurts. The last thing I would ever want to do is inflict that pain on someone else.’
The journalist assumed Rebel would be ‘happy’ to discuss her new relationship, given she had been posting photos alongside Ramona since January, but conceded ‘we mishandled steps in our approach’.
He then went into detail on the email sent to Rebel’s team, and the deadline given, revealing ‘no decisions had actually been made by the Herald’s editors on whether to publish anything’.
While insisting his email ‘was never intended to be a threat’ and was more to make it clear the reporter was ‘sufficiently confident’ his information was accurate, Hornery added: ‘It is not the Herald’s business to “out” people and that is not what we set out to do. But I understand why my email has been seen as a threat. The framing of it was a mistake.’
He noted from now on the publication ‘will approach things differently’ in an effort to take into consideration ‘the extra layer of complexities people face when it comes to their sexuality’.
The paper’s editor, Shields, had previously denied the publication attempted to ‘out’ the star, insisting it ‘simply asked questions and as standard practice included a deadline for a response’, and that it ‘would have asked the same questions had Wilson’s new partner been a man’.
However, speaking about the situation on Twitter, Rebel revealed it had been a ‘hard situation’.
She wrote: ‘Thanks for your comments, it was a very hard situation but trying to handle it with grace.’
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