Sydney Columnist Apologizes For Controversy Over Reporting Rebel Wilson’s New Relationship
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The Sydney Morning Herald writer Andrew Hornery is taking responsibility for his recent mishandling of an article.
The writer came under fire when it was revealed that he had told Rebel Wilson he was planning to release a story on her new relationship.
Wilson, who has only dated men publicly, came out as part of the LGBTQ+ community on June 9 when she revealed her new partner was Lemon Ve Limon founder Ramona Agruma.
In a new opinion piece, Hornery is now admitting his fault in unintentionally pressuring the actress to reveal her sexuality before she was ready.
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“I have learnt some new and difficult lessons from this and want to be upfront with you about the things I got wrong,” he began.
“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,” he continued. “As a gay man I’m well aware of how deeply discrimination hurts. The last thing I would ever want to do is inflict that pain on someone else.”
Hornery detailed how he spoke with multiple sources on what he suspected was a “happy story” about Wilson’s new relationship, as she had been spotted attending events with Agruma publicly but admitted he “mishandled” the approach to the topic.
In his previous now-deleted post on the topic, he said he had sent an e-mail to the actress asking for comment on their breaking story on her new relationship. He told her his deadline for the article was in two days.
“Her response would have largely determined what I published and as my editor noted on Sunday, at that point no decisions had actually been made by the Herald’s editors on whether to publish anything,” he defended, suggesting they may not have gone forward with the article. “I received no reply, which was entirely Rebel’s right.”
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Wilson instead chose to announce her relationship, herself, on Instagram before the article could be published.
“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,” he added. “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.”
The writer stated that the outlet would “approach things differently” in the future when it came to stories with such sensitive topics.
