How Rebel Wilson’s ‘Situation-Ship’ with a Female Tennis Player Helped Her Feel Real Love by ‘Cracking Open’ Her Heart (Exclusive)

Rebel Wilson is opening up about a meaningful connection in her life and how it felt to find it.

The actress and comedian, 44, spoke with PEOPLE about a “situation-ship” she had with a female tennis player that she writes about in her memoir, Rebel Rising: A Memoir, forthcoming from Simon & Schuster.

‘It was like a rollercoaster,” Wilson says. “Sometimes, when I was dating men, people would even comment. They're like, ‘God, Rebel, you can take them or leave them. You weren't that ever invested.’"

“And then, here was somebody where [I] felt so invested in and even thought at one point, ‘Oh, I could give up my career for this person, travel around the world on the tennis circuit’,” she continues.

Wilson says that this person, who she declined to name, also helped her to discover the potential depth of her own feelings.

“I describe it as cracking open my heart,” Wilson says. “Like you could open a fresh can of tennis balls…that's what it did to me. And, I guess, when I saw people write love songs or poetry about love, I was like, ‘Oh, that's nice’. But I don't think I'd ever understood that until I felt that for a person.”

Wilson mused that lots of factors could have gone into not having those feelings sooner.

“It could have been that just the guys I was dating just weren't the one. Or that, also, I wasn't open to intimacy that much back then, so I never allowed myself to feel real feelings,” she says. “And then the first time was with the tennis player.”

In Rebel Rising Wilson writes candidly about her career, her iconic roles in films like Bridesmaids and Pitch Perfect, as well as the more vulnerable moments in her life, such as her experience with fertility, food and her sexuality. In February 2023, Wilson announced her engagement to Ramona Agruma on Instagram.

In December 2023, Wilson also spoke about the writing process of Rebel Rising on Instagram.

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“You’re going to see a whole new side of me. Lots of funny stuff, and serious stuff...And hopefully you guys will love the book as much as I’ve loved writing it — although sometimes its been gut-wrenching and emotional,” she said.

Rebel Rising: A Memoir will be published on April 2 and is now available for pre-order.