Rebel Wilson Went from Making $3500 for Bridesmaids to $10 Million for Pitch Perfect 3

In her new memoir, Rebel Wilson is revealing the numbers behind her ascent to superstar status in Hollywood.

Rebel Rising, the 44-year-old actress’ tell-all book pulling back the curtain on her past, details the salaries of her two biggest career breakthroughs: 2011’s Bridesmaids and 2012’s Pitch Perfect. 

Soon after moving from Australia to the U.S. — to become “the female Jonah Hill,” she writes in the book — Wilson signed with agents at William Morris Endeavor and booked Bridesmaids, from director Paul Feig, producer Judd Apatow and writers Kristen Wiig and Annie Mumolo. She calls the comedy her “first opportunity in Hollywood that changed the trajectory of my whole career.”

Getting paid only $3500 for her scenes with costars Wiig and Matt Lucas “didn’t matter to me,” writes Wilson, noting that the fee was just enough to pay what was required to join the SAG-AFTRA union and continue to make movies in the U.S. “The experience was everything!”

Within two weeks of the movie’s premiere about a year after filming, Wilson recalls, she booked a whopping six movies, “one of which was Pitch Perfect. Boy, did that movie pay dividends!”

While the 2012 a cappella comedy became a box office hit (and earned Wilson $65,000), it was 2015’s Elizabeth Banks-directed sequel that had the biggest movie musical opening ever. As Wilson reveals in Rebel Rising, having franchise cast members Anna Kendrick, Brittany Snow, Anna Camp, Hana Mae Lee, Ester Dean and Alexis Knapp back for a third film was not a straightforward affair. 

According to Wilson, producers originally sought to replace those cast members — whom Wilson says were deemed too “old” — with a new crew of “Barden Bellas,” led by Hailee Steinfeld, whose character had been introduced in Pitch Perfect 2. “None of us original Bellas were happy about this,” she recalls.

Instead, the movie’s box office success gave Wilson the leverage needed to negotiate a much higher salary for 2017’s Pitch Perfect 3: $10 million.

“Cue the big bucks,” she writes, for the main cast members of the franchise. “Girl power!”

Never miss a story — sign up for PEOPLE's free daily newsletter to stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer, from juicy celebrity news to compelling human interest stories.

Elsewhere in Rebel Rising, Wilson writes about waiting to lose her virginity until age 35, her complicated relationship with her volatile father and her experience working with Sacha Baron Cohen. 

Through it all, the Isn’t It Romantic star includes intimate insights into her relationship with body image, eating and how her weight affected both her career and personal life. Speaking to PEOPLE last month, Wilson said, “I got more attention for weight loss than any movie I'd ever done.”

She added that she wants the memoir “to give people the message, if they're like me and an emotional eater, that it's not about that stuff. It's literally about working at a healthier way to deal with your emotions, and there is no magic solution.”

Rebel Rising is on bookshelves now.