Although actress, producer and comedian Rebel Wilson’s “Year of Health” officially wrapped up on December 31, 2020, she’s maintained her health habits for several years since then.
“Starting the New Year off strong! HAPPY NEW YEAR you legends, love from downunder!” Wilson captioned a sparkling holiday photo of herself on Instagram as she rang in 2022 in Australia.
Wilson has been bringing her fans and followers along with her each step of the way, documenting her progress through candid Instagram photos and captions—and celebrating her proud moments.
“You have to celebrate—life is short and you just have to love and live it,” Wilson wrote in her 2021 wrap-up. “You know how I’ve been theming my years for the past few years? Well this year was The Year of The Rainbow 🌈… after the storm always comes the rainbow”—likely a nod to bouncing back from a breakup with previous boyfriend, Jacob Busch (the duo split in early February 2021).
That relationship faded off into the sunset, true, but Wilson certainly hasn’t allowed her health habits to do the same. That doesn’t mean it’s always been easy, though.
During a December 6, 2021 interview with BBC World Service, Wilson says she decided to share on Instagram that she was declaring 2020 her Year of Health, “because I did want to make a lasting change and I wanted to be accountable for it. Making it very public kind of helped, but it was risky, I guess. Before I had lost weight and put it back on, and you get criticism sometimes for that.”
The celeb briefly discussed the fact that she graduated from law school in 2009, then went on to star in the movie “Pitch Perfect” as one of her most popular characters, “Fat Amy.” Her size was part of her “comedic persona,” the actress and comedian has said on Instagram, and she found herself on a bit of a weight roller coaster since she was about 20—losing a few kilos, then gaining them back.
When Wilson decided to make her health a priority in 2020, “I got a lot of pushback from people on my own team, actually, here in Hollywood,” says Wilson in the BBC interview. Wilson noted that her team was worried that some of her career success in films ranging from “Bridesmaids” to “Pitch Perfect” to “Jojo Rabbit” might have been linked to her body size, which had become part of her act.
That didn’t slow her down, however. “I knew deep down inside that some of the emotional eating behaviors I was doing were not healthy. I did not need a tub of ice cream every night. That was me numbing my emotions with food, which was not the healthiest thing,” says Wilson.
Yet, as much as she wanted to get healthier, all of the attention she soon received as she lost 10, then 40, then 80 pounds was admittedly uncomfortable at times.
