The Australian journalist who attempted to forcibly out Rebel Wilson’s relationship with a woman, only to later complain about her decision to go public with the relationship before he could publish his story, has now apologized for how he handled the matter.
“That was not fair and I apologise,” Andrew Hornery wrote Monday.
Wilson revealed on Thursday that she is dating Los Angeles clothing designer Ramona Agruma. But on Saturday, Hornery wrote an opinion column that revealed she had only done so after he’d emailed her to inform her she had two days to comment before he reported the relationship himself.
Hornery also attempted to imply that Wilson had somehow behaved unethically and hypocritically, writing without any apparent irony: “Considering how bitterly Wilson had complained about poor journalism standards when she successfully sued Woman’s Day for defamation, her choice to ignore our discreet, genuine and honest queries was, in our view, underwhelming.”
Following an understandable global backlash, that column was taken down and has now been replaced with one entitled “I made mistakes over Rebel Wilson, and will learn from them.”
“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. 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,” Hornery wrote in part.
“It is not the Herald’s business to ‘out’ people and that is not what we set out to do. But I understand why my email has been seen as a threat. The framing of it was a mistake,” Hornery continued. “The Herald and I will approach things differently from now on to make sure we always take into consideration the extra layer of complexities people face when it comes to their sexuality.”
“In trying to tell the story within the story, which is what Private Sydney does, the tone of my column on Saturday was also off. I got it wrong. I allowed my disappointment to cast a shadow over the piece. That was not fair and I apologise,” Hornery added.
Wilson has yet to comment publicly on the matter.