Set in the south of France, the film sees Josephine Chesterfield (Hathaway), a glamorous Brit with a penchant for defrauding gullible wealthy men, team up with Penny Rust (Wilson), a fun-loving Aussie who amasses wads of cash by ripping off her marks in neighborhood bars, in an attempt to swindle a naïve tech billionaire (Alex Sharp).

Despite Hathaway and Wilson’s winning chemistry, though, reviews of The Hustle have been less than complimentary, with the film scoring a measly 17% on Rotten Tomatoes at the time of this article’s publication.

Now, speaking to Yahoo!, Wilson has revealed that The Hustle initially received an R rating from the MPAA and had to petition to get that reduced. Noting that 1988’s Dirty Rotten Scoundrels – starring Michael Caine and Steve Martin – was classified a PG, Wilson claimed that sexism was the reason for the harsher rating.

“I thought it was extremely unfair that a reboot of that was given an R-rating just because us two sexy ladies were in it,” the actress said. “I thought it was quite sexist that male-driven comedies were much more likely to get PG ratings…when, on a scientific analysis, female-driven comedies had less swear words, less nudity and less violence.”

Wilson’s argument ultimately persuaded the ratings board to overturn their previous decision, downgrading The Hustle’s R-rating to a PG-13.

Rebel Wilson blames sexism for The Hustle’s “extremely unfair” R-rating