[imagesource:wikipedia]

Australian comedian and actress Rebel Wilson lived in South Africa for a stint and can even fake an Afrikaans accent to prove it.

But Saffas are pulling apart the story she tells about living here, noting that she’s exaggerating or lying about some details.

The actress sat down for an interview with This Morning UK co-hosts Ben Shephard and Cat Deeley where she spoke about her experience here. Rebel has been on an international book tour following the release of her 2024 autobiography Rebel Rising. In the book, the 44-year-old comedian reflected on her unconventional introduction to the entertainment industry, which surprisingly began after a year of living in Johannesburg.

Besides being sorely mistaken about SA not being anything like the Lion King, as she expected, “singing in the bush with warthog Pumbaa” or whatever, the Pitch Perfect star revealed that she got malaria here.

The South African noted that in 2000, Rebel spent a year of her life living and travelling in Africa as part of her work as a former Rotary International youth ambassador for Australia. She says Johannesburg was “full of beauty and majestic,” quickly adding that it was also “very dangerous”.

Image: Instagram/@rebelwilson

After talking about the majestic moment of seeing “wild baboons at the top of the mountains while the sun was rising”, Rebel said she ended up getting malaria and “almost dying”.

“…but that led to me to becoming an actress. I had this hallucination that I was an actress when I was in hospital and that changed the whole trajectory of my life,” said Rebel.

@thismorningEver wondered how global superstar Rebel Wilson rose to stardom? After nearly losing her life in South Africa, Rebel describes the moment that changed the whole trajectory of her life.♬ original sound – This Morning

However, in other interviews, Rebel said she actually caught the mosquito-borne disease from “rural Mozambique”. Per The Times, Rebel said that if she’d “never had that African adventure I’d never have had that vision”:

“When I was 18 I was selected as a youth ambassador for Australia, so I was based in southern Africa for a year. It was such a massive experience. South Africa was going through so many challenges post-apartheid. I got to travel all around: Zimbabwe, Malawi, Eswatini. Seeing gorgeous creatures on safari was the most majestic, beautiful thing. The flipside was that I got malaria in rural Mozambique. I had a pretty bad strain, but the fun part is that because I was so sick I had a hallucination that I was an actress, and that changed the course of my life.”

So there you have it, in her regurgitated story, she fudged which African country gave her the “deadly strain” of malaria because you know Africa is essentially one big blurry country and now a whole continent with many different countries.

#celebsabroad 2: Rebel Wilson got MALARIA in South Africa and hallucinated winning an Oscar – so she started acting! pic.twitter.com/qIAl9k671P

— The Exchange Room (@theexchangeroom) October 10, 2015

On social media, locals have accused the actress of “lying” about her experience.

TikTok user @noxda1 said: “In all my 34 years I’ve never had or even met someone who has had malaria in SA 😭😭😭😭.” Another user, @the_immigration_lady, said: “😳😳Really ? Which South Africa did you visit.”

While @zeenatrossouw said: “Haibo😳 Malaria in Jozi? 😂😂😂i never heard such a thing in my life. but then ive never seen a pumba, timon or baboon. i must be in a different south africa.”

Although, if we’re being nitpicky, there are rare cases of malaria in our humble country. Per a study in The National Library of Medicine, South Africa has achieved an “87% reduction in malaria cases, with a decline from 64,622 cases in 2000 to 8,126 cases in 2020. Furthermore, the number of malaria-related deaths has decreased by 91% (459 deaths in 2000 to 38 deaths in 2020).”

Rebel just needs to choose which African country she got the malaria fever dream in and stick to it.

[source:iol]