Inside pals Rebel and Matt’s enduring friendship... and shrinking waistlines
Beaming on a jet-set birthday getaway with friends, Rebel Wilson looked a world away from her former self – and so does her old flatmate Matt
She looked incredible as she enjoyed a belated 41st birthday celebration with friends last week on a private island near Tahiti – which she jokingly renamed “Rebel Island” for the lavish bash.
And Rebel Wilson looked every inch the Hollywood glamour-puss as she partied with close pals, including her former Pitch Perfect co-stars Anna Kendrick, Brittany Snow, Chrissie Fit and Shelley Regner. The friends posted pictures from a private jet and on a beach, with Rebel wearing a series of sexy outfits.
HEALTH VOW
The new-look star turned 41 in March, but her planned celebrations were postponed due to the pandemic.
After rising to fame as “fat Amy” in Pitch Perfect, the once-curvy comedian decided to change her life, vowing to make 2020 her “year of health”. And she did just that.
The 5ft 2 star has wowed fans with the results of her 4½st slim down – dropping from 16st to 11½st following The Mayr Method diet, which consists of high-alkaline foods, such as fish and vegetables.
She also started a new exercise regime, which includes a combination of HIIT (high intensity interval training) workouts, mobility and weights. By the end of last November, she’d reached her target goal and has continued to lose weight since then – although she’s not disclosed how much.
It’s all a far cry from her former lifestyle where she kept mainly covered up in public and used food as a crutch to make her happy. Reminiscing about those days recently, Rebel told her Instagram fans she indulged in too much junk food after losing her father to a heart attack in 2014.
In a caption accompanying an unflattering throwback photo, Rebel explained it was taken “when I was at my unhealthiest – being overweight and indulging way too much with junk food. Using food to numb my emotions.” She added that it was “such a sad time” and that she was “in so much pain” and wanted to “send some encouragement with those struggling with weight or body issues or emotional eating.”
At the time, Rebel was living a quiet life in Los Angeles with comedian and Bake Off presenter Matt Lucas, 47, who lodged at her apartment for three years, where she revealed they’d enjoy nights in “singing show tunes”.
Matt, who asked her to move
in after he’d played her flatmate in hit movie Bridesmaids, said at the time, “Our home life is much quieter than in Bridesmaids... We’ve never really fallen out over anything. We have a dishwasher, she did more loading, but I did more unloading”.
As she approached her recent milestone birthday, Rebel – who recently met up with Matt in London – grew fed up with being typecast as the “bigger” girl in her film career. She said last year, “I turned 40 in March and so I thought, ‘This is gonna be it. This is going to be the year for me to just concentrate on the health benefits’… It’s not like I want to lose weight and get to around a certain number. It’s more than that, it’s about dealing mentally with why I was overeating, and I had a job where I was paid a lot to be bigger at times, and that can mess with your head a bit.”
She then went public with a boyfriend for the first time, billionaire Jacob Busch. She also confessed her health kick was driven by her hope to start a family, saying in December, “I was thinking about fertility and having good-quality eggs in the bank so I was like, ‘OK, I’m going to do this. I’m going to get healthy’.”
GRATEFUL
Now, Rebel’s Instagram page regularly features her in figurehugging dresses and swimwear, and she recently enjoyed an extended holiday in the Med, where Closer revealed the star – who split from Jacob last February – enjoyed a romance with a businessman in Rome. She also received several public flirty comments – including some from her ex Jacob and former England rugby hunk, Sam Burgess.
She’s now pushing forward with IVF plans and, after a setback in May where she’d received “bad news” , she last week hinted she was on her way to achieving her dream as she posted about receiving some “great news”, saying, “I feel like when you give out to the universe, the universe gives back to you – so lucky, so grateful.”
Her weight-loss journey has astounded and inspired fans but, more importantly, she seems happy with her lifestyle changes, saying, “I like to think I looked good at all sizes and stuff, and I’ve always been quite confident… But now
I’m super-confident.”