Yahoo Finance Rebel Wilson Reveals the Letter She Put in Her Dad's Coffin After He Died: ‘I Forgive You’ (Exclusive)
The actress' father died from a heart attack in 2013 at age 62
Rebel Wilson and her father Warwick didn't always have the best relationship.
In her upcoming book Rebel Rising: A Memoir, which is excerpted in this week's issue of PEOPLE, the Pitch Perfect star, 44, recalls writing a heartfelt letter to her dad and putting it in his coffin after he died in 2013 at age 62 from a heart attack.
"To dear Dad," Wilson writes, "I’ve said a lot that you were never really part of my acting career, but on reflection, you were and are. There’s a cheekiness, a dodginess and entrepreneurial-ness, a darkness, a creative-ness, a bravado-ness that comes from you and your side of the family."
"I thank you greatly for that," the star continues. "I’m sure you didn’t mean to bring so much pain to Mum and us kids. You didn’t mean to lose your temper and do spiteful and hateful things."
"I want you to know that I forgive you. I will strive to find love, I will no longer be afraid of it," Wilson adds, signing off: "Your daughter, Rebel xoxo."
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Karwai Tang/WireImage; Simon & Schuster
Rebel Wilson, cover of 'Rebel Rising.'Speaking with PEOPLE in support of her memoir, out April 2 from Simon & Schuster, Wilson opens up about how it felt to detail her rocky relationship with Warwick.
“At one part, it is easier because he's passed away," she explains. "And I wonder whether I would've had the courage to do it if he was still here... [so] it's a little bit easier, I guess, in that respect that he's not."
"But that is also something that I've never spoken about before, and it is cathartic, I think, to write about it," the Bridesmaids star continues.
Speaking about her father, Wilson notes that their relationship "wasn't so black and white."
"There were all these other things — the sadness that I felt when he did pass away so suddenly, and how tragic that was, and how I have regrets," she says. "It surprised me by writing [the memoir], sometimes, the empathy I felt towards him and thinking about his life and his struggles."
Wilson also spoke to PEOPLE about the physical abuse she endured at the hands of her father when she was a young girl.
“I think it probably led to not having good self-worth, and also thinking you had to be good all the time, being a good girl and not being naughty," she says. "I was not naughty in any way because I think I was fearful."
Wilson is now a mother herself to a 16-month-old daughter Royce. She adds: "At school, I would be very good and get very good grades, and I would never talk back or be disrespectful. I never smoked or drank or did anything naughty because I would be scared. ... So I always had to be a very sensible and responsible child."
For more from Rebel Wilson's book Rebel Rising, pick up the latest issue of PEOPLE, on newsstands now.
Rebel Rising: A Memoir, out Tuesday, is available for preorder now wherever books are sold.
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