Rebel Wilson has received an apology from the columnist of a newspaper which he said had been planning to "out" her before she decided to come out on her own terms.
Last week, the 42-year-old Australian actress announced to her 11 million followers on Instagram that she is in a relationship with a woman - fashion designer Ramona Agruma.
"I thought I was searching for a Disney Prince… but maybe what I really needed all this time was a Disney Princess," wrote the Pitch Perfect star, before adding the hashtag "Love is love".
A couple of days later, Andrew Hornery - columnist for The Sydney Morning Herald - piped up to comment on how Wilson had announced her same-sex relationship.
He appeared to call her out for coming out on her own terms rather than waiting for the newspaper to do a story on her new romance.
In an article published on Saturday, Hornery explained said Wilson was given two days to comment on her new relationship before the paper put out an article essentially outing her.
The article has since been removed for the site.
"In a perfect world, 'outing' same-sex celebrity relationships should be a redundant concept in 2022. Love is love, right?" Hornery had written in the since-removed article. "As Rebel Wilson knows, we do not live in a perfect world."
Hornery continued: "So, it was an abundance of caution and respect that this media outlet emailed Rebel Wilson's representatives on Thursday morning, giving her two days to comment on her new relationship with another woman, LA leisure wear designer Ramona Agruma, before publishing a single word.
"Big mistake. Wilson opted to gazump the story, posting about her new 'Disney Princess' on Instagram early Friday morning, the same platform she had previously used to brag about her handsome ex-boyfriend, wealthy American beer baron Jacob Busch."
The following day, Wilson referred to the situation as a "very hard" one.
A Twitter user, Kate Doak, had tweeted a link to Hornery's article, writing: "So apparently it wasn't @RebelWilson 's choice to come out... The @smh / @theage have admitted to giving her a heads up 2 days in advance that they were going to 'out' her. What's worse, openly gay men at the Sydney Morning Herald were involved in this."
Wilson responded to Doak's tweet, writing: "Thanks for your comments, it was a very hard situation but trying to handle it with grace."
Presumably in response to the tweet, Hornery wrote another column on Monday apologizing for how he handled the whole situation. The piece was titled: I made mistakes over Rebel Wilson, and will learn from them.
He wrote: "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."
Hornery went on to say: "My email was never intended to be a threat but to make it clear I was sufficiently confident with my information and to open a conversation. 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 ended the piece with an apology.
