Rebel Wilson Addressed Her On-Stage Weight Loss Comments Directly

As you’d expect, Rebel Wilson had everyone in stitches with her presenting gig at the 2022 BAFTA Awards. Opening the star-studded show with a hilarious monologue, Wilson decided to address her weight loss right out of the gate. “I might look a bit different from the last time you guys saw me here,” the actor said as a photo of her from 2020 appeared on screens. “I might look a bit different.”

“This was me two years ago and since then I’ve done quite the transformation,” she said. “I hope J. K. Rowling still approves,” referencing the author’s recent controversial comments about transgender people. On International Women’s Day last week, she wrote on Twitter: “Apparently, under a Labour government, today will become We Who Must Not Be Named Day.”

Moving on from that, Wilson explained that “everybody is asking” why she decided 2020 would be her “Year of Health”. “Clearly it was to get the attention of Robert Pattinson,” she said. “You know, as they say, once you go bat you don’t go back.” But as she went on to joke, it was actually “to get more acting roles” including the ability to now “play the non-funny love interest in an Adam Sandler movie.”

Emma Watson looked visibly distressed at this joke, with many noting the negativity surrounding before-and-after weight comparisons. But as Wilson told the Hollywood Reporter, the actor likes to make jokes about her weight “first because it is different.” “When you’re a comedian, you use things about your physicality to your advantage, and I used being a plus-size girl to my advantage in many comedy movies,” she explained.

Wilson also revealed that since losing weight, she has actually been offered different roles. “I found with the British drama The Almond and the Seahorse – I’m not sure I would have been cast in that when I was a bigger girl because they kind of stereotype you a bit more when you’re bigger.”