Sacha Baron Cohen's team says redacted versions of Rebel Wilson's memoir are 'clear victory' following harassment allegations
Sacha Baron Cohen's team is celebrating the release of redacted versions of Rebel Wilson's memoir.
Its release had been delayed in the UK and Australia amid her accusations of harassment against Baron Cohen.
A spokesperson for Baron Cohen said the redactions represented a "clear victory" for the actor.
Sacha Baron Cohen's team said the release of redacted versions of Rebel Wilson's memoir was a "clear victory" for the British actor.
The publication of "Rebel Rising" had been delayed in Australia and the UK amid Wilson's allegations of harassment by the "Borat" star, as Business Insider previously reported.
While people in Australia are still waiting for the book to hit shelves, it has finally been released in the UK.
But, as in the UK, legal reasons will see the Australian and New Zealand copies of the book come with parts blacked out.
"For legal reasons we have redacted one chapter in the Australian/New Zealand edition and included an explanatory note accordingly," publisher HarperCollins Australia said in a statement, per the Guardian.
A note has been added to the UK copy saying that the redactions were made "due to the peculiarities of the law in England and Wales."
A spokesperson for Baron Cohen told Deadline: "Harper Collins did not fact check this chapter in the book prior to publication, and took the sensible but terribly belated step of deleting Rebel Wilson's defamatory claims once presented with evidence that they were false."
"Printing falsehoods is against the law in the UK and Australia; this is not a 'peculiarity' as Ms. Wilson said, but a legal principle that has existed for many hundreds of years," they added. "This is a clear victory for Sacha Baron Cohen."
The statement concluded that the claims Wilson made were "demonstrably false" and a "shameful" attempt to sell books.
Representatives for Wilson, HarperCollins, and Baron Cohen did not immediately respond to requests for comment from Business Insider, which were sent outside regular business hours.
Wilson has alleged that Baron Cohen harassed her when they worked together on the 2016 film "The Brothers Grimsby," including by asking her to perform a lewd act and repeatedly requesting she appear naked in the film despite her rule on not doing nude scenes, People reported.
Baron Cohen has strongly denied the claims.
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