brisbane, australia —
Hollywood star Rebel Wilson has successfully defended claims that she defamed a young actress who played the lead role in her directorial debut.
An Australian judge on Wednesday dismissed a lawsuit brought by “The Fat” actress Charlotte McInnes, who accused her of spreading lies about her to her millions of followers on Instagram.
Ms McInnes said the posts had made her “the subject of online abuse, hatred and ridicule” and had affected her career prospects. Justice Elizabeth Raper dissented.
In the post, Wilson suggested that McInnes dropped the sexual harassment charges against the film producer in order to further his career as an actor and singer. Mr McInnes denied ever making a complaint.
The claims and counterclaims are among significant allegations, including a smear campaign and embezzlement, that have now been raised in multiple courts swirling around the production of the Australian musical comedy.
Set in a town in the Australian outback, “The Fat” tells the story of two very different cousins, one from the city and one from the countryside, who come together for their debut ball. It was supposed to be a heartwarming story of triumph, but the process of creating it ended up creating a story of its own.
Ms Wilson told 60 Minutes Australia last year that the legal storm surrounding the making of her first feature film was “like my worst nightmare” and that the problems were “coming out of left field”.
In an Instagram post after Wednesday’s verdict, Ms Wilson thanked the judge and the Australian legal system for a “substantive victory” and said she looked forward to moving on.
One of the key allegations related to an incident in September 2023 in which McInnes and producer Amanda Ghost shared a bath in a Sydney penthouse rented by the production company.
“To say that the circumstances that led to their bathing were extraordinary would be an understatement,” Judge Raper said in his judgment.
Ms McInnes and Ms Ghost said they both put on swimsuits and went in to warm up after Ms Ghost had a physical reaction from swimming in the cold waters of Bondi Beach.
Ghost said in a court filing that he was shaking uncontrollably and had developed welts that he hoped would go away after he warmed up.
McInnes was also cold, she said, and the bath was large enough for two women. McInnes, who supports Ghost’s version of events, said in an affidavit that “there was nothing sexual about it.”
But Ms Wilson claimed Ms McInnes had told her that Ghost had asked her to take baths and showers with him and that the experience had made her “uncomfortable”.
Mr Wilson said he understood Mr McInnes had reported sexual harassment on set and as a director he had a duty to address it.
Judge Raper found that the only claim that was “found” was that Mr. McInnes changed the story that he found offensive, and that it was not defamatory. The case was dismissed with Mr McInnes ordered to pay costs.
The Penthouse Bus claims are just some of the allegations revealed in court papers surrounding the film, which one review described as a “fun, bubbly, cheeky musical.”
According to court documents, the relationship between Wilson and the producers began to deteriorate before filming began in 2023, and worsened during post-production.
The explosive allegations were also raised in a June 2024 letter from Wilson’s lawyer Brian Friedman to Ghost and the film’s other producers, Ghost’s husband Gregor Cameron and Vince Holden.
In her affidavit, Ms Gorst said the letter made “a number of materially defamatory and false allegations that Gregor and I engaged in vile sexual misconduct against Charlotte at her Bondi Beach apartment”.
“I was appalled by the letter and the false allegations made by the rebels,” Ghost said. Ghost and his co-producers filed a defamation suit against Wilson.
Ghost alleges that Wilson helped create a slanderous website calling her the “Indian Ghislaine Maxwell,” after the former partner of pedophile Jeffrey Epstein, who is currently in prison for trafficking young girls into her home. Wilson denied having anything to do with it.
In a social media post, Wilson claimed that producers initially withheld consent to screen the film at the Toronto International Film Festival in retaliation for drawing attention to their bad behavior. Ghost said he did not try to prevent the film from being shown at TIFF.
“The Deb” ultimately premiered at TIFF in 2024. It was released in Australian cinemas earlier this year and will be released in the US this August.
This is not the first time Wilson has been at the center of a high-profile defamation case.
In 2017, she won a defamation lawsuit against publisher Bauer Media, which portrayed her as a “serial liar” in a series of articles in an Australian lifestyle magazine.
The article suggested that Wilson had lied about his name, age, and upbringing while pursuing Hollywood fame.
Judge John Dixon said Bauer Media had failed to show that the allegations about Wilson were materially true or trivial.
At the time, she was awarded 4.5 million Australian dollars (approximately 360 million yen), the highest amount in Australia’s history, for defamation, but the award was later reduced to approximately 450,000 dollars after the Court of Appeal found the article did not seriously damage her career.
