“They’ve been called out for their bad behavior, and now they file a defamation claim,” Wilson wrote on social media
Rebel Wilson has been sued by the producers behind her directorial debut days after calling them out on social media.
On Wednesday, July 10, Wilson, 44, posted a lengthy Instagram video accusing The Deb producers Amanda Ghost and Gregor Cameron, and executive producer Vince Holden of “bad behavior” on set.
Wilson claimed she was met “with absolute viciousness and retaliatory behavior” after reporting the alleged actions and accused the producers of blocking the film from premiering at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF).
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In a defamation suit filed against Wilson in the Superior Court of California, County of Los Angeles, on Friday, July 12, Ghost, Cameron and Holden denied Wilson’s clams that they embezzled funds from the film’s budget and engaged in inappropriate behavior towards the lead actress of the film. The producers also raised accusations about Wilson’s own conduct.
“She flatly refused to collaborate with Plaintiffs, absconded from the Film for months at a time, behaved unprofessionally with employees of the Film, and repeatedly made unauthorized and improper disclosures about the Film,” a portion of the legal document obtained by PEOPLE reads.
The lawsuit claims that “the dispute between Plaintiffs and Rebel came to a head” after the movie star expressed interest in wanting a co-writing credit and rights to the film’s original music.
“Rebel’s goal in these several disputes was to get credit for work she did not do, and to overshadow young, upcoming artists who truly deserved the credit,” the lawsuit claims.
The producers also explained why they withdrew The Deb from TIFF.
They “had to consider carefully whether to proceed with marketing the Film while it was embroiled in numerous credit and licensing disputes instigated by Rebel,” they said, alleging that they “continuously attempted to resolve the disputes in good faith but Rebel had other ideas.”
“Even though the plan was always to show the Film at TIFF, Rebel attempted to force the issue and bully them into capitulating to her other unreasonable demands by leveraging her popularity on social media to spread these malicious and baseless lies about [the producers] to her 11 million Instagram followers,” the lawsuit alleges. “This was a vindictive attempt to destroy [the producers’] reputations with what she knew were demonstrably false statements.”
Wilson responded to the lawsuit on Instagram by posting an on-set photo, writing, “It’s not defamation if it’s the TRUTH (those ‘producers’ who I mentioned in my last post have just filed a defamation suit against me and sent to the press)! Let our cool movie play at Toronto and stop messing about with a rubbish defamation suit against me!”
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Wilson shared additional photos featuring various members of the Australian cast and crew on her Instagram Stories, alongside more comments about the lawsuit.
“They’ve been called out for their bad behavior, and now they file a defamation claim. Ummm I’ve pretty sure I have 200 witnesses to prove what I’m saying is right,” she wrote on top of one of the photos.
