Rebel Rising : Chapter 1

I’m driving to Beverly Hills in my matte-black Mercedes-Benz G-wagon, which I should add has extra tint on the windows. Illegal tint, apparently? But it looks cool. I’m wearing shiny DITA sunglasses, an expensive, lightweight Japanese brand that I heard was also a favorite of Brad Pitt’s. They ARE lightweight. I don’t like feeling a ton of pressure on my nose bridge. I’m sensitive, in almost all ways. “At least my nose is my nose,” I think. And that’s a rarity in Beverly Hills. I guess I’m a rarity too, a big girl from Sydney’s suburbs who came to LA a decade earlier with just one suitcase and a doona (that’s Australian for “duvet”). Stupidly, one-quarter of that suitcase was filled with a box of Caramello Koala chocolates—but we’ll get to my emotional eating later.

I wind down my window as I emerge from the canyon, cross Sunset and drive down Beverly. It’s one of those famous palm-tree-lined streets that pouting influencers love. My fine blond tortured hair blows around in my attempt to air-dry it. I have what’s called “working girl” hair—constantly colored and styled because of my work as an actress. At least I have hair—some Hollywood actresses don’t. Some of them legit have bald patches from all the styling. I just try to let my hair go feral on days like today—when I’m not working—which means I wash it and do absolutely no styling. It’s an attempt to try to strengthen it. Some days when my hair’s feral it can miraculously look like it belongs to a mermaid beach princess, with gorgeous soft curls… other days it can look like I’ve been lost out in the bush for weeks. Full feral. Today, it’s in between these two extremes.

I’m thirty-nine years old and weigh a beautimous 225 pounds (102 kilos). People say I have “such a pretty face” when I meet them in person, or “You’re not as big as I thought you were.” Is this a compliment? Who cares. I am a big girl. I’m proud of it. I’ve made millions of dollars playing the fat funny girl. I’m an international movie star. I’ve won things—cool shit like MTV Movie Awards. The four Golden Popcorn awards sit in a trophy case I have at my second home in Los Angeles. Because yes, I have two. One house, up in the Hollywood Hills, is where I actually live, with a view of my beloved Hollywood sign. Sometimes I get coyotes and the occasional stalker, both of which freak me the fuck out, but apart from that it’s peaceful. It’s like a Snow White house—hummingbirds fly around the bird feeder, bunnies come out at sunset in the backyard, a giant deer once appeared randomly just outside my bedroom. Squirrels run across the roof in the morning, and I can hear them while I’m in bed. Some nights you can see the fireworks from Universal Studios’ Harry Potter castle.

My other house is in West Hollywood, and I call it “the office house.” It stores all my movie posters and memorabilia. I’m not that “up myself” that I have that stuff in my real house. It’s all in my office house. The picture of me working with Channing Tatum in an MTV promo sketch (right before he touched my boobs, which I had craftily written into the script and told him to do if he wanted to… obviously this was a highlight of my career). The picture of me working with Ben Stiller on Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb. (I froze my tits off working with him all night, in the middle of winter, but it’s awesome to work with legends… and when you can get them to crack a smile in a scene, even better!) My original Bellas performing outfit from Pitch Perfect, the navy skirt suit and necktie that made us look a bit like singing airline stewardesses (no further boob comments to add). My cheerleading outfit from Senior Year that made me feel like I could do the splits… I still can’t. My stunt double Meredith can, though. Ahhh, the memories! Wigs from when I performed live at the Hollywood Bowl in Disney concerts. A camera slate from Cats signed by Dame Judi Dench, James Corden, Sir Ian McKellen, Idris Elba, Taylor Swift, etc. My Academy membership—yes, I’m a member of the Academy, bitches, and get to vote for the Oscars now. I feel like a success. Especially when I’m in my office house.

I drive past Rodeo Drive with all the posh shops—shops I’ve never actually shopped in—mainly because I could never, ever fit into any of their clothes. I can buy the handbags, pointless silk scarves—never the clothes, though. I normally wear cheaper plus-size brands that are sold online, to save myself the indignity of having to try on something in a store. I’m a US size 16–18, which is the average size of an American woman. MOST women in America are considered plus-size, but in Hollywood, where I live, less than 1 percent of us are bigger girls. There are only a few of us. Melissa McCarthy, Gabourey Sidibe, Queen Latifah, Chrissy Metz (I know I’m forgetting some, but seriously, there are not many). We’re like a rare sighting, the leopards of the LA Private Game Park.

Also, some actresses would get offended if I called them plus-size in this book, so I have to be careful with what I say. This is why, I think, Adele hates me. There was a moment when she was bigger, and some people would confuse us for one another. I’d be in England and people would come up and say, “Oh, I love your new album.” I legit signed an autograph once as Adele at Claridge’s because the people truly thought I was her and wouldn’t leave me alone until I did. I am assuming, because to be fair I’ve never asked her (she always quickly turns away from me at the few events where I’ve seen her, as if my fatness might rub off on her if I were near her for more than thirty seconds), that she didn’t like being compared to “Fat Amy.” Whereas I was flattered by the comparison; Adele’s fucking awesome.

I drive past my agency, WME—William Morris Endeavor—on Wilshire, the biggest talent agency in the WORLD. They signed me on my second day in America a decade ago because they “didn’t have anyone like” me on their books. The combo of being plus-size, Australian and a multi-hyphenate (actress-writer-producer) was unique. But I’ll get to that story later too.

My GPS tells me to turn right, and I pull into the parking structure. I’ve had instructions to come through a side door because I’m a VIP celebrity. So I drive to a specific floor and meet a special nurse who’s holding the exit door open for me while scrolling on her phone. I pay extra for this treatment.

I don’t want anyone to notice me being at this clinic, because today, it’s personal. I don’t want the paps to follow me. They normally get me in my leggings just going for a walk by myself. That’s the usual shot that quickly pops up on the Daily Mail. If I’m doing something super scandalous or private, I make sure to ditch them through my expert Jason Bourne driving techniques. I can ditch those motherfuckers if I want to ditch them. But today, luckily, I don’t have to.

I enter the side door of the floor that houses a high-end reproductive center. It’s not as flashy as you might think. It’s still more medical than Beverly Hills chic. (Only the following year will they build a luxury office floor especially for VIPs.)

I get a quick glimpse of some other ladies in a main waiting room as I’m ushered into a private room by my special nurse. I see them filling out their forms—some of them with partners, some by themselves. I fill out my forms in the private room—it’s just me. NAME: Rebel Wilson.

One of the girls from Pitch Perfect told me about this place. We were all having dinner at my house, just us girls, and among the racy sex stories that we all like to share, she had thrown this personal tidbit into the mix. She’d had a good experience freezing her eggs and said it was a smart thing to do. “It gives you options,” she said. “Was it painful?” I asked. “A bit,” she said. Then we all got back to laughing about pegging. (And no, I won’t tell you which Bella is into pegging… you can just imagine that for yourself.)

I sit there… waiting by myself. Do I want a free water from the nearby mini fridge? My bogan instincts say yes—“bogan” is Australian slang akin to “white trash.” I always take free shit. That’s why I have an extra house to put it all in.

I sit there thinking. For most of my life, I didn’t want kids. I saw what my mum went through having us four—I have two sisters and a brother—and she was basically a servant to us. We sucked on her life-force every time we yelled “Muuuuuuuum!” and then demanded something banal, like “Where’s my shirt?!” She did all the cooking, the cleaning and the washing and had to earn money on top of that. She’d breed beagle puppies in our kitchen or pimp out stud dogs in our garage for matings at $500 a pop. (Yes, that was a super-weird thing to walk in on as a child! Adults standing around two dogs mating whilst you’re just there looking for your skateboard after school. “Ugh!” I’d say as I walked in on this mysterious dog-sex gathering. You can’t UNSEE two dogs having sex in your garage whilst a woman called Glenda checks that the dog has ejaculated.)

Mum got married young at twenty-one and had me, her first child, at twenty-four. Every time I look at her varicose-veined legs, her scars from breast and skin cancer, her reconstructed knees, I see that my mum is a warrior woman—a dedicated, loving mother who gave her all to her children. And it shows. She used to look a bit like Bette Midler, with plump, youthful skin. She used to sing, dance ballet and play guitar. But not after she had us. She gave us kids so much of herself that she lost parts of herself in return. I didn’t want to be like that, a sacrificing martyr always carrying a heavy laundry basket of responsibilities up the stairs. No time for herself. No time to shine. Sometimes she says that she probably should’ve married the long-haired Julian, her cooler boyfriend who rode a motorcycle, but instead she settled for my dad. Settled young. Had kids young. Self-sacrificed like so many women of that generation were trained to do.

Mum told me, “Get out into the world and chase your dreams. Don’t settle down too early like I did.” There was that… and then there was going to a Christian all-girls high school. “Don’t have sex, girls… it’ll limit your possibilities.” I specifically remember a teacher saying once, “Even if you call a boy on the telephone, you’ll get pregnant and be trapped.”

So, I didn’t get trapped. I wasn’t the school slut who got pregnant and was “asked to leave” the school in disgrace. (We watched from the classroom window as she was escorted off the school grounds with her parents. Where was she going? Some pregnancy shame home? We never saw her again.) I wasn’t like some of my cousins who got pregnant at fifteen and sixteen and who were living small lives in rural Australia. I was living my dreams out in the world like Mum had told me to do. I was living a HUGE LIFE in Los Angeles. A bigger life.

I was just driving my sick G-wagon through Beverly Hills this morning. And now I’m off to make a baby.