Rebel Wilson: I Experimented With Ozempic! Childhood Trauma Was The Reason I Couldn't Lose Weight & ALL The Truth About Sacha Baron Cohen!

Rebel Wilson (0:00)

It was the worst professional experience of my career, and this was before the Me Too movement. I felt humiliated and degraded.

Steven Bartlett (0:07)

What can you say about that experience? An award-winning Hollywood superstar.

Rebel Wilson (0:16)

Okay, here we go. My dad would say horrible things to my mum, fat, lazy cow, no one will ever love you. And I had issues with food because I had low self-worth, and that's why I would trash my body. I felt my life wasn't going to be anything. But then I found motivational tapes that said, ‎The brave put down their fears and go forward. And so I decided to go out into the world and make a name for myself. And then I noticed on stage that people like laughing at bigger people. I thought I could use this to my advantage. I gained all this weight. My body was like at 102 kilos. And then I came to America and now I'm making millions of dollars from playing the fat funny girl. I'm living this amazing life, but you achieve it and then it's not enough. And I'm still a virgin, never dated properly. In this biological clock, you could hear it going...

I went to the fertility doctor. And the doctor looks at me up and down and goes, you're not healthy. And it like really sunk in. I've got to fix this. But as soon as I started telling people in my team, they're like, oh, no, no, no, no, why would you want to lose weight? because then you lose your multimillion dollar career. You're just going to throw it away?

Steven Bartlett (1:22)

Was that your hardest moment?

Rebel Wilson (1:24)

No, the darkest point in my life was when I was 13

Steven Bartlett (1:34)

Rebel, I think to understand somebody, you have to understand their earliest context. And as I read through your book Rebel Rising, which is out now, I was surprised in many ways, but also the person that I'd seen on a screen made sense in a bunch of different ways. So let me throw that question to you as the first question, which is if I was to endeavor to understand you, what do I need to know about your earliest context?

Rebel Wilson (2:03)

Yeah, I guess some people see you on screen and they have this image of what you are like. And often I guess people would think some overly confident, very confident in her sexuality and just a kind of brash, ballsy person. But from my upbringing, I mean, I think I couldn't be more the opposite. I mean, I grew up in a pretty regular suburban Australian upbringing, but was extremely shy to the point where like you'd never think that I would choose entertainment for a career, like that would just be unimaginable for this, like bordering on some kind of social disorder, shyness, and then coming from quite a humble beginning of being in a family where we made money selling pet products out of a yellow caravan at dog shows, and so driving around the country to these dog shows and selling like pooper scoopers to pick up the poop for the dogs, and brushes, and leads for the dogs, and all these things. Also, I was allergic to dogs, so that's why my childhood always felt a little bit uncomfortable, which I never realized why until later when I got tested as an adult, that I was allergic.

And so I think by writing the book, people can see this whole other dimension of me and kind of maybe why I have the personality that I have now.

Steven Bartlett (3:40)

What about your parents?

Rebel Wilson (3:42)

So my mum was a school teacher in state schools. So had a lot of like refugee students and students that came in not knowing English, and she mainly taught kindergarten. So like all these kids. So she's just like a light, you know, light of a woman, like just a brilliant teacher, helped so many young people. And for some parts of my childhood, she was just a stay at home mum, which I shouldn't say just because now I'm realizing being a mum is like the hardest thing ever. And then my dad was someone who, his father died suddenly when he was 18 in his final year of high school.

So I think that through his life, what was supposed to be his life, of course, and he kind of had emotional issues from losing his dad suddenly that young and in a tragic way. So he had, I believe, you know, wanted to be a businessman and wanted to be successful, but I guess because of his own emotional issues and stuff, didn't quite fully achieve his potential.