Credit: Screenshot, 'Pitch Perfect 3', Universal PicturesIn 2011, Australian actress Rebel Wilson burst onto the Hollywood scene when she played Brynn in the Kristen Wiig comedy Bridesmaids. Her role wasn’t huge, but she made quite the impression. The next year, she had audiences crying tears of laughter when she starred as Fat Amy (AKA Fat Patricia) in the a cappella movie Pitch Perfect.
Since then, Wilson has appeared in a number of other hit films, including Pitch Perfect 2 (2015), Pitch Perfect 3 (2017), The Hustle (2019), Jojo Rabbit (2019), and Senior Year (2022).
Most recently, Wilson decided to focus on not only starring in, but also directing a movie. Enter The Deb — a movie that Wilson helped write, direct, and produce. She also stars in the movie as Janette. The Deb is a musical that tells the story of two teenage girls who are attending a debutante ball.
The movie closed out the Toronto International Film Festival and received very positive reviews. Things seemed to be only getting better for the actress, and she couldn’t be stopped.
Unfortunately, things behind the scenes were not so great. On July 11, Ms. Wilson uploaded a video to her personal Instagram page, revealing that she was being sued and the movie she worked so hard on might never see the light of day.
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According to Ms. Wilson, producers Amanda Ghost, Gregor Cameron, and Vince Holden were suing her because she discovered the trio had been harassing one of the crew members and embezzling funds from the film. She said she was fighting back because she wanted The Deb to get the release it deserved.
She also said that this was not the first time Amanda Ghost had been accused of inappropriate behavior on set.
Days after her video was uploaded, Ghost, Cameron, and Holden filed a defamation lawsuit against Ms. Wilson. They accused the Isn’t It Romantic? (2019) star of making up the sexual assault allegations. They also claimed that The Deb was dealing with significant credit and licensing issues, which is why they did not want the film to be released.
Rebel Wilson is not taking the accusations against her lightly, and she recently filed a countersuit against the three producers. She accuses the trio of having a “troubling pattern” of “theft, bullying, and harassment.”
Wilson’s new suit alleges that Ghost was sexually harassing the film’s lead actress, Charlotte MacInnes, and “forced MacInnes to live in her Bondi Beach penthouse apartment with her,” where “Ghost took a shower and a bath with MacInnes.” It also claimed that “Ghost was overheard making overtly sexual remarks to MacInnes on set.”
In Wilson’s suit, Ghost, Gregor and Holden are also accused of scheming to inflate the film’s budget and pocket the excess funds, according to the complaint. The suit said they “embezzled AU $900,000 from the film’s budget to be split between them.”
When Wilson reported the allegations to executive producer Danny Cohen, which he allegedly ignored, according to the suit, that’s when the producing trio “orchestrated a malicious and unyielding retaliatory campaign directed at her.”
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Despite her claims, some of those named in the lawsuit have denied the allegations. Charlotte MacInnes released a statement to The Hollywood Reporter, saying that there was “no truth to the allegations.”
“There is no truth to the allegations made involving me. I made a statement to the film team when this was first said in September 2023, and I am saying this again now to draw a line under it. Making false accusations undermines real victims, and I won’t be the subject of a fabricated narrative.”
Danny Cohen also denied Wilson’s claims, saying:
“[I] took the reports I received extremely seriously and have a thorough, well-documented record of the many steps I took to investigate the claims Rebel brought to my attention. Despite repeated requests, Rebel did not provide any actual evidence that these claims were true. Moreover, I was informed very clearly during my investigation by the party concerned that there was no merit at all to Ms Wilson’s claims. As such – and given all the documentary evidence – the allegations against me have no merit.”
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Ms. Wilson further claims that, because of the actions of Ms. Ghost, Mr. Cameron, and Mr. Holden, she was forced to hire personal security, just so she could finish her work on The Deb. She claims that Cameron threatened to fire 300 crew members if she did not sign a document retracting the allegations she made against him.
In an interesting twist, the lawsuit also names Shakira as one of the people who has had negative dealings with Ms. Ghost. The lawsuit states that Ghost bullied the Colombian singer into giving her ownership over certain songs. Like MacInnes and Cohen, Shakira denies the allegations.
Are you a fan of Rebel Wilson? Do you believe the claims she made in her lawsuit? Let us know your thoughts in the comments.