Rebel Wilson, Sydney Morning Herald: Whoopi Goldberg slams Australian newspaper for ‘outing’ star

Whoopi Goldberg has slammed an Australian newspaper for attempting to ‘out’ Rebel Wilson before she went public with her new girlfriend Ramona Agruma on Friday.

On Saturday, Sydney Morning Herald columnist Andrew Hornery published a column in which he hit out at Rebel’s decision to ‘gazump’ his scoop, arguing he’d found out about the relationship and was going to publish a story about it.

Whoopi said on American talk show The View: ‘There’s a lot of speculation that Rebel came out to get ahead of a tabloid story in the Sydney Morning Herald about her relationship.’

The View’s Whoopi Goldberg (pictured) slammed an Australian newspaper for attempting to ‘out’ Rebel Wilson before she went public with her new girlfriend Ramona Agruma

‘Now, the man who wrote it even apologised, saying it was “never his intention to out her” … Well, you know that’s not true.’

She continued: ‘If it wasn’t your intention you wouldn’t have done it. If you didn’t want to do it, you shouldn’t have done it you knew exactly what you were doing.’

The View’s Sara Haines then weighed in and pointed out that Hornery is gay himself, and therefore should have known better.

‘You’d think he’d have a unique empathy to how people come to those decisions when they’re ready,’ she said.

Sara went on to say that she personally ‘wouldn’t trust’ the media with such a sensitive story.

On Saturday, Sydney Morning Herald columnist Andrew Hornery published a column in which he hit out at Rebel’s decision to ‘gazump’ his scoop, arguing he’d found out about the relationship and was going to publish a story about it. (Rebel and Ramona Agruma pictured)

‘ If it wasn’t your intention you wouldn’t have done it,’ Whoopi said in a fiery segment on The View this week

‘It’s sad that they’re in this situation that they have to release these things that they’re not ready to talk about, but I think that’s the better way to own the narrative,’ she said.

‘I would not give a quote or talk to a place that’s forcing me to tell a story that I’m not ready to tell.’

Sunny Hostin agreed, calling the entire situation ‘horrible’.

It comes after Hornery apologised for the ‘tone’ of his controversial Rebel Wilson article, and said it was never his intention to ‘inflict pain’ when he reached out to ask about her new relationship with Ramona Agruma.

Hornery admitted he has learned some new and difficult lessons following the scandal.

‘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 wrote in a column which replaced Sunday’s article online.

‘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.’

It comes after Hornery (pictured) apologised for the ‘tone’ of his controversial Rebel Wilson article, and said it was never his intention to ‘inflict pain’ when he reached out to ask about her new relationship with Ramona Agruma 

Hornery said he thought that his article would be a ‘happy story’ after seeing several months of photos of the pair together on her Instagram page.

‘I assumed there was a good chance she might be happy to discuss it,’ he explained.

‘She had already revealed a month ago that she had been dating and was very happy.’

The gossip columnist added he never meant his request comment to be a threat, but rather ‘make it clear’ that he was ‘sufficiently confident with his information and to open a conversation’.

‘I assumed there was a good chance she might be happy to discuss it,’ he explained. ‘She had already revealed a month ago that she had been dating and was very happy’