Updated ,first published
Hollywood actor Rebel Wilson has rejected as “absolute nonsense” an allegation that she bullied and harassed a star of her directorial debut as she gives evidence in a high-stakes defamation case.
Wilson, 46, is being sued for defamation in the Federal Court by actor and singer Charlotte MacInnes, 27, over comments posted on Instagram.
Wilson arrived at the Federal Court in Sydney on Tuesday to give evidence in the case.
MacInnes’ barrister, Sue Chrysanthou, SC, said she expected to cross-examine Wilson for about two days.
“As you sit here, truthfully, do you still say that you regard yourself as a champion of women?” Chrysanthou asked, in a reference to a statement Wilson made in her written evidence.
“Yes,” Wilson said.
Chrysanthou put to Wilson that she had “bullied and harassed” MacInnes “publicly and privately”.
“That’s absolute nonsense,” Wilson said.
MacInnes, a lead actor in Australian musical film The Deb, alleges Wilson defamed her by suggesting she was a “sellout” and a liar who recanted a complaint about one of the film’s producers, Amanda Ghost, in return for further career opportunities. The film was released on April 9, less than a fortnight before the trial started.
MacInnes told the court last week that she “never made a complaint” to Wilson and “didn’t walk back anything”.
Wilson alleges MacInnes “changed her story” and is seeking to prove that this is true to the civil standard, on the balance of probabilities.
Wilson denies mistreating women
At the start of the cross-examination on Tuesday, Chrysanthou put to Wilson that she had “mistreated a number of women” who worked on The Deb.
Wilson said that she did not believe she had “ever mistreated a woman” and there were no complaints during the production of the film or “at any time in my 25-year career”.
She said she would accept that she was “not a fan” of Hannah Reilly, the writer of The Deb, after the pair fell out over the writing credits for the film.
“You did mistreat Charlotte MacInnes, didn’t you,” Chrysanthou said.
“Not at all,” Wilson said.
The Instagram posts
Wilson, who starred in Bridesmaids and Pitch Perfect, made the comments at the centre of the lawsuit in Instagram stories between September 2024 and July last year.
She suggested MacInnes made “a complaint to me as director” that Ghost “asked her to have a bath and shower with her and it made her feel uncomfortable”. MacInnes denies that conversation happened.
Neither woman was named in that Instagram story, but surrounding posts contained identifying information.
There is no dispute that MacInnes and Ghost did share a bath on September 5, 2023, while they were wearing their swimming costumes.
But MacInnes and Ghost say it was in response to a medical episode in which Ghost had a reaction to cold water after swimming at Bondi Beach. At the time, the pair were staying at a rented Bondi apartment, along with Ghost’s assistant, during rehearsals for The Deb.
Ghost’s GP Alison Joy, giving evidence from the United Kingdom last week, said she spoke to her patient by phone after the incident. She said she told Ghost “she didn’t need to go to hospital” but to increase her dosage of a medication she was taking for another condition.
Text messages tendered in court reveal that Wilson and Ghost discussed MacInnes shortly after the incident.
“Charlotte says all good. She just meant ‘it was a bizarre situation’ not that she felt personally uncomfortable x,” Wilson texted Ghost on September 7, 2023.
Ghost texted back: “Oh thank f— for that!!” She added “OMG”, “that’s hilarious”, and “I nearly died” in a string of follow-up messages.
But Wilson raised the incident again some weeks later. Chrysanthou alleged in her opening address to the court that Wilson raised the allegation as leverage in a commercial dispute rather than out of concern for the young actor, which she denies.
Wilson is now involved in a welter of legal disputes with the film’s co-producers, including Ghost.
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