Australia's gay community was thrilled. On Instagram was a selfie of one of the country's biggest stars - with her girlfriend! Rebel WilsonShe has starred in films including Bridesmaids and Senior Year. had come out, proclaiming she had "found her Disney Princess": American fashion designer Ramona AgrumaThe founder of a sustainable fashion company called Lemon Ve Limon..

It seemed a particularly brave thing to do in a conservative country where homophobia is still much in evidence. Last year the footballer Josh CavalloAn Australian professional footballer whose coming out last year made him the only openly gay professional footballer. received insults and death threats after coming out. Although there are many gay people in show business, revealing their sexuality is considered potentially damaging to their box-office appealA request for help. .

The delight in Wilson's revelation lasted barely a day. On Saturday Andrew Hornery, a journalist for the Sydney Morning Herald, revealed he had known about her relationship and told her he was about to write about it.

In other words, Wilson had not chosen to come out at all.

The response this time was fury. What appeared to be a feelgood story was an invasion of privacy.

The newspaper pleaded innocence. Hornery said he had approached Wilson "with an abundance of caution and respect", while his editor claimed no decision to publish the story had been made.

Then, on Monday, the paper made a limited apology, saying that it had "mishandled" the affair. But that was not enough for its critics. "Maybe I'm incredibly naive," tweeted the BBC's Megha Mohan, "but this is what I imagined 90s gutter press was like and most journalists had huge standards change since then".

In the 1990s, gay-rights campaignersThe practice was particularly associated with a British group called OutRage! outed people they felt should be more open about their sexuality. Today it is considered unacceptable. As The Guardian's Eleanor Morgan noted:

"The Human Rights Campaign defines outing someone as 'exposing someone's lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender identity to others without their permission'... it is a flagrant act of arrogance to take away someone's autonomyThe right to make your own decisions...."

"This is a story that should not have seen the light of day," agrees Dr Sacha Molitorisz, a former Herald journalist who now lectures on media ethics and privacy.

He adds that newspapers in the UK are becoming more cautious after losing a number of court cases about invasion of privacy. But in Australia, Wilson has little chance of winning one.

Yes: The outing of Rebel Wilson is yet another example of the press turning someone's life upside down for the sake of a headline. Such revelations should only be made if they are in the public interest.

No: There are already too many curbs on press freedom. The rise of expensive lawsuits, launched against journalists and others to silence them, shows how the legal process can be abused.

Or... Nobody who has 11 million Instagram followers, as Wilson does, can expect to have any kind of private life. Fame comes at a price, and she has only herself to blame for courting it.