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Rebel Wilson accused of making up false sexual assault allegations about young actress
The first-time director is involved in dueling lawsuits over her upcoming film The Deb.
Rebel Wilson is being accused of harassment, bullying, and making up lies on the set of her directorial debut The Deb by one of the stars of the film.
In new court documents, young Australian actress Charlotte MacInnes, who stars in the musical comedy which premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in September, alleges that Wilson repeated claims that three of the film’s producers sexually harassed and abused MacInnes despite telling Wilson that these things never happened, The Guardianreports.
“I was deeply disturbed by this behavior, and felt very bullied and harassed by Wilson, who was the director of the film and in a position of authority over me,” MacInnes said.
MacInnes also alleges that Wilson claimed that producers Amanda Ghost and Gregor Cameron sex trafficked her and held her captive. “Nothing that I told Wilson could reasonably have conveyed that I was reporting any misconduct, because there was no misconduct,” she alleges. “I also understand [there were] claims that I was subjected to ‘depraved sexual demands’ and that ‘MacInnes remains captive by Ghost and Cameron as she is shuttled from city to city with them including Boston, New York, and London.’
These statements are completely false and absurd. I have no idea what could cause Wilson and her attorney to make up such lies about me.”
These allegations are at the heart of the defamation suit the film’s three producers — Ghost, Cameron, and Vince Holden — filed against Wilson.
Along with accusations of bullying and unlawful imprisonment, Wilson has also accused Ghost and Cameron of attempting to embezzle $900,000 AU from The Deb both on Instagram and in declarations filed with the court.
The Pitch Perfect alum — who married wife Ramona Agruma in September — is countersuing and trying to strike down the defamation suit against her by using California’s anti-SLAPP laws, which allows defendants to dismiss meritless lawsuits early to prevent people from using lawsuits to intimate someone trying to exercise their right to free speech.
“This motion was filed to ensure that Rebel can use her voice for what she has always done, which is advocate for herself and others,” Wilson’s attorney Bryan Freedman, told Us Weekly in a statement.
The legal back and forth between Wilson and the producers continued last Friday when Ghost, Cameron, and Holden’s lawyer filed a motion to strike Wilson’s claim, alleging that her declaration in support of her motion was full of “multiple blatant falsehoods and rises to the level of outright perjury” and her complaint isn’t a public issue, but a private business dispute.
The dueling lawsuits seem to stem from disputes over The Deb’s writing credits, which could result in millions of dollars worth of legal bills, and Wilson's claim that the producers were blocking the film's intended premiere at TIFF.
Beyond MacInnes’ claims that Wilson lied about the young actress being sexually abused, the producers allege that Wilson is behind a website that was created that accused Ghost — a British-born producer of Indo-Trinidadian heritage — of being an “Indian Ghislaine Maxwell,” The Guardian reports.
The lawyers acting for the producers have requested a 90-day stay so they can establish the source of the anonymous website (amandaghost.com), which they claim contained “grotesque lies” and was registered two days after Wilson sent threatening emails saying she planned to “very publicly ruin them.” They also allege that Wilson’s lawyer sent the producers emails threatening to include “sex trafficking” in the public filing, which he said “can’t be good for the film.”
The Deb doesn’t have a U.S. theatrical premiere date yet.
Wilson’s anti-SLAPP motion and the producers’ request for a stay will be heard in court on November 21.
Ariel Messman-Rucker is an Oakland-born journalist who now calls the Pacific Northwest her home. When she’s not writing about politics and queer pop culture, she can be found reading, hiking, or talking about horror movies with the Zombie Grrlz Horror Podcast Network.
Ariel Messman-Rucker is an Oakland-born journalist who now calls the Pacific Northwest her home. When she’s not writing about politics and queer pop culture, she can be found reading, hiking, or talking about horror movies with the Zombie Grrlz Horror Podcast Network.
