Did Rebel Wilson lie about her name and age?
It wouldn’t be breaking news if a movie star shaved a few years off his or her age. But a new report in Australia’s Women’s Daily accuses Rebel Wilson of lying about basically everything related to her childhood.
“She’s clearly got a vivid imagination,” said a source who claimed to be an old classmate. “Maybe you have to tell stories to make it in Hollywood!”
In Rebel’s telling of events, she grew up in the “ghetto” of Sydney and was named “Rebel” at birth after a girl who sang at her parents’ wedding. Her IMDb profile puts her age at 29. However, the new source said Rebel’s real name is Melanie Elizabeth Bownds and she’s 36 years old.
“I studied with Rebel at Tara Anglican School for Girls in North Parramatta, Sydney,” the source said, providing pictures of the two of them in school together. “She was born in 1979 and we left school in 1997… She was definitely not the class clown; none of us remember her being funny.”
The classmate said Rebel grew up in an “upper-middle-class” family and suggested she also lied about her parents’ careers as professional dog handlers.
Flashback Friday! Me showing dogs with my Mum!! X pic.twitter.com/CkhyPK5R6Y
— Rebel Wilson (@RebelWilson) January 17, 2015
As for the truth, there may be some simple explanations that have come directly from Rebel through the years.
“At school we went under our middle names usually. I have two – Melanie Elizabeth – so I was never under Rebel,” she told The Herald Sun in 2011. “At law school, I was Rebel. When you’re a kid, you don’t want to be teased. We’ve got a regular middle name, then an English royalty third name. I’m Elizabeth after the Queen.”
In the same interview, Rebel admitted she wasn’t 28 as was suggested at the time — but was coy when asked about her real birthdate. She said, “That’s wrong, and as my mum says, ‘You’re a lady, don’t say your age.'”
After the first report was published, the Sydney Morning Herald said her official birth certificate shows Rebel was born “Rebel Melanie Elizabeth Wilson” on March 2, 1980, which puts her current age at 35. That age is now what shows up on her Wikipedia and IMDb pages.
Even though it seems like the truth is a mix of the tabloid reports and Rebel’s stories, she fired back on Twitter this week:
OMG I’m actually a 100 year old mermaid formerly known as “CC Chalice” ….thanks shady Australian press for your tall poppy syndrome x
— Rebel Wilson (@RebelWilson) May 18, 2015
Okay but all jokes aside now…my real name is Fat Patricia x
— Rebel Wilson (@RebelWilson) May 18, 2015
Publisher Mia Freedman later defended her decision to run the story.
“She started making recently that have been very negative towards women that are her age or older. Just very subtle barbs,” Mia told Fairfax Media, via the Sydney Morning Herald. “I think that when you are in the public eye and you tell a lie about yourself repeatedly and insistently, that’s going to cause comment….She’s making claims that aren’t true. That has an effect, we were simply reporting that fact. We were very careful not to attack her, just to lay out of the facts.”
