The age at which Rebel Wilson lost her virginity may surprise you

Actress Rebel Wilson is about to drop her memoir, Rebel Rising. Among its revelations is the fact that she lost her virginity at the age of 35.

Wilson, who is engaged to partner Ramona Agruma, told People why she wanted to talk about her sex life in the book.

She suggested she wanted to alleviate the pressure some young people felt to explore sex before they felt ready.

“Not everybody has to lose their virginity as a teenager,” she commented.

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“People can wait till they’re ready or wait till they’re a bit more mature,” says Wilson. “And I think that could be a positive message. You obviously don’t have to wait until you’re in your thirties like me, but you shouldn’t feel pressure as a young person.”

Wilson says that she went as far as lying to friends who asked about her losing her virginity as she felt embarrassed.

“There was one vague time, I think I told my best friend, ‘Oh, yeah, I just did it to just get it over with when I was like 23,'” Wilson recounts. “Just to really avoid the questions.”

Opening up to romance

Wilson was born in 1980 and is now 44. She calls herself a “late bloomer”. However, she believes if she were born around the turn of the century, she’d be more likely to be experimenting sexually at a younger age.

“It’s absolutely incredible, if I had been born 20 years later, I probably would’ve explored my sexuality more. I just knew I was attracted to men, and that was the normal thing,” recalls Wilson.

“And so when I started opening myself up probably more after my father’s death and realizing, oh, even though I’d seen marriage as a terrible thing and waste of time, I started opening myself up to that. And then only years later, meeting women and having feelings for a woman, and that, I just think it’s a sign of where society kind of was.”

Romance with tennis player

Rebel Rising also reveals that before meeting Agruma, Wilson found herself in a “situationship” with a women’s tennis player. She does not name the athlete. However, Wilson was clearly smitten. Before this, she’d dated men but friends had commented on her apparent lack of interest in the relationships.

In an extract run by People, Wilson said, “Sometimes, when I was dating men, people would even comment. They’re like, ‘God, Rebel, you can take them or leave them. You weren’t that ever invested.’

“And then, here was somebody where [I] felt so invested in and even thought at one point, ‘Oh, I could give up my career for this person, travel around the world on the tennis circuit’.”

She said it was the first time she realized what real love might feel like.

“I describe it as cracking open my heart,” Wilson says. “Like you could open a fresh can of tennis balls…that’s what it did to me. And, I guess, when I saw people write love songs or poetry about love, I was like, ‘Oh, that’s nice’. But I don’t think I’d ever understood that until I felt that for a person.”

Sacha Baron Cohen

Rebel Rising has also made headlines after one person mentioned in it disputed its version of events. Wilson has previously talked about working with someone who turned out to be an “a**hole”. Her book reportedly names that person as Borat star Sacha Baron Cohen.

The two acted together in the 2016 movie, The Brothers Grimsby.

It’s not known what Wilson says in her chapter about making the movie. However, a spokesperson for Baron Cohen told BBC News earlier this week: “While we appreciate the importance of speaking out, these demonstrably false claims are directly contradicted by extensive detailed evidence, including contemporaneous documents, film footage, and eyewitness accounts from those present before, during and after the production of The Brothers Grimsby.”

Rebel Rising is out on April 2.

Related:

New Survey Reveals Age Most Gay People Lose Virginity

It’s younger than you might think.