Hollywood star Rebel Wilson has entered a courthouse ahead of giving evidence in her high-profile defamation battle against the star of her directorial debut.
The Pitch Perfect star is being sued by Charlotte MacInnes, the Australian lead actor of musical comedy The Deb.
MacInnes claims Wilson defamed her in four social media posts that claimed she made a sexual harassment complaint and then retracted it to further her career.
Wilson entered the federal court on Tuesday morning before taking the witness stand to fight her co-star’s defamation claims.
Her wife, Ramona Agruma-Wilson, may no longer be required to attend court to give evidence after Wilson’s legal team made an application for her testimony to be read in her absence.
Dauid Sibtain SC noted she was in the late stages of a high-risk pregnancy, raising the issue of the stress of cross-examination.
The defamation dispute was sparked when MacInnes assisted The Deb’s co-producer Amanda Ghost after she suffered a medical episode at Bondi beach in September 2023.
She helped the producer back to an apartment they were sharing with others and ended up innocently sharing a bath in their swimwear in a bid to warm up, MacInnes said.
Hints about what Wilson might say in her evidence can be found in sworn statements by MacInnes that have been tendered to the court and contain parts of the older actor’s own affidavit.
She is expected to testify about her claim MacInnes confided in her that Ghost had asked her to have a bath and a shower together, and it made her feel uncomfortable.
MacInnes denies making the complaint, maintaining she later clarified to Wilson the situation had been weird but she was not uncomfortable around Ghost.
In her statement, Wilson said she overheard the producer and young star saying intimate things – often of a sexual nature – to each other, which MacInnes has denounced as untrue.
She also rejected Wilson’s account of seeing Ghost push her to go out for a drink together until the young actor relented.
The Bridesmaids star falsely portrayed herself as a whistleblower who spoke up to protect MacInnes when she was actually using the alleged complaint as leverage in a dispute with her co-producers, MacInnes’ barrister Sue Chrysanthou SC said.
Instead of checking on the alleged victim of inappropriate behaviour, Chrysanthou said Wilson instead shared posts “slagging off” her client.
“This is how this bully, apparently this saviour of women, the protector of the harassed, responds,” the barrister told the court.
But Wilson raised her concerns with others even though she had doubts about the veracity of the alleged complaint, Sibtain said in his opening address.
The central issue was not whether MacInnes was a victim but instead whether she complained to Wilson and then changed her story, he said.
Wilson’s case was that MacInnes retracted her story “to ensure her career as an actress and musician progressed by appeasing Ghost”.
Sibtain also argued MacInnes hasn’t suffered any harm to her reputation at all as a result of the social media posts, contrary to her allegations.
Wilson will likely face questioning about MacInnes’ claim she played a role in a hack on her social media account that led to a nude photo being leaked.
The Hollywood star is also expected to be grilled on whether she was involved in creating malicious websites attacking Ghost that referenced the alleged complaint.