Rebel Wilson surprises fans at Reading Festival as she joins The Kooks on stage for Gangsta’s Paradise cover

Rebel Wilson surprised fans at Reading Festival on Friday when she joined The Kooks for a rendition of Gangsta’s Paradise. 

The Australian actress, 45, was welcomed on stage by frontman Luke Pritchard, with the crowd going wild.   

Luke said: ‘We’d like to film a scene of a movie with you… so we’d like to welcome to the stage the incredible, the unbelievable, the hugely successful, famous, beautiful popstar, Tazzie Young… otherwise known as Rebel Wilson!’ 

Rebel exclaimed: ‘What’s up Reading? Seeing as I’m out here, I thought I should sing a classic Kooks song… so I don’t know about you guys, but I was thinking about Gangsta’s Paradise.’

The band looked at each other in confusion, before kicking off the 1995 Coolio hit. 

Speaking about how the moment came together, Luke explained: ‘We’re huge fans of Rebel.’

He continued: ‘She got in touch saying she wanted to come and watch us. Immediately I invited her to join us on stage.

‘We asked her which song she wanted to sing, expecting her to pick one of ours. She said the only song she knows all the words to is Gangsta’s Paradise… so Gangsta’s Paradise it was!’ 

The Kooks, a plucky band from Brighton, stumbled into a major record deal mere months after forming in 2004.

Led by singer and songwriter Luke, their 2006 debut album Inside In/Inside Out flung them into the public consciousness, going three times platinum and later prompting hundreds of millions of plays on streaming sites.

Earlier this year, they released their seventh album Never/Know, which brought back their British sense of humour and blended it with summery riffs to create an upbeat record to cheer listeners up during tough times.

Luke told the Daily Mail: ‘I wrote it at home with my kids running around. Having come from heaven, through hell and back with Hugh [Harris] and the band, we’ve been through such a journey.

‘It’s got quite shoegaze in the indie scene, which I love, but it’s quite gloomy. We are just consumed by being told all the time that everything’s so bad.

‘And this one, it just flew out of me. I don’t know if that will happen again, but it was wild. It was like five days, and I had ten songs.’

He added: ‘Music is really important, and I feel like people will gravitate more towards the arts and things when things are tricky, because it gives you hope.’ 

The festival is once again held at Richfield Avenue in Reading, with the Leeds leg taking place at Bramham Park. 

Earlier this year, it was confirmed that Good Luck, Babe! hitmaker Chappell Roan will headline the festival alongside US rapper Travis Scott.

Irish singer-songwriter Hozier will also play the festival after the raging success of his hit single Too Sweet over the summer.

Alongside the fan favourites, 30 more names were added to the line-up which promised to be even bigger than previous years.

The line-up now includes Limp Bizkit, who will be taking to the main stage.

Their set will lead into a headline slot from Sheffield metal giants Bring Me The Horizon.

D-Block Europe, Example, Jazzy, Nell Mescal, Good Neighbours, Nemzzz, and many more have also joined the line-up.