Rebel Wilson is at the center of a defamation lawsuit following her claims against “The Deb” producers.
Wilson posted a social media video in which she accused “The Deb” producers Amanda Ghost and Gregor Cameron and executive producer Vince Holden of barring the film from debuting at TIFF 2024. (The musical film will in fact close the 2024 festival. It is still seeking distribution, with WME handling sales.) Wilson also alleged that the trio of producers embezzled funds from the indie feature and harassed the lead actress.
Now, IndieWire can confirm that Ghost, Cameron, and Holden have filed an amended joint legal defamation complaint against Wilson. The case was filed in Los Angeles on July 12 and has an amended filing as of July 30. Among the amendments arw allegations that Wilson “refused to collaborate” with producers and “absconded from the film for months at a time.” Wilson is accused of also “behav[ing] unprofessionally with employees of the film and repeatedly making unauthorized and improper disclosures about the film.”
Overall the allegations from the producers paint a picture of Wilson allegedly having “shirked her professional obligations” to “The Deb.”
“This lawsuit is about holding Rebel accountable for her attempts to bully Plaintiffs into conceding to her unreasonable demands by spreading vicious lies without regard for the irreparable damage her reckless words would cause,” the suit states.
The lawsuit alleges that Wilson was absent from the set for extended periods and made unauthorized disclosures about the film, as well as acted in retaliation over the credits of the feature. Per the lawsuit, which was filed by attorneys Camille Vasquez, Samuel Moniz, and Honieh Udenka, Wilson wanted full screenplay credit for her directorial debut but only received an “additional writing by” credit, with rising screenwriter Hannah Reilly being listed instead. The Australian Writers Guild is the organization that determined who should be accredited.
According to the suit, Reilly received a “scholarship to develop a screenplay for ‘The Deb,’” which Wilson paid for. Wilson then allegedly tried to take credit for Reilly’s work. “The Deb” was adapted from a stage play that Reilly wrote the songs for; she also composed the songs with Megan Washington. Wilson’s production company Camp Sugar acquired the rights to the script before the producers, now the plaintiffs in the defamation lawsuit, were brought onboard.
The lawsuit points to an alleged pattern of Wilson “fabricating false and malicious lies to hide her own lack of professionalism.” Among those “lies” listed include Wilson’s accusation of her former “The Brothers Grimsby” co-star Sacha Baron Cohen of harassment. While “The Deb” producers were not on set of that 2016 film, Wilson’s recent public allegations against Cohen are cited in this case as portions of her autobiography “Rebel Rising” were redacted when published in the United Kingdom and Australia. Cohen denied the claims against him earlier this year and according to Wilson, threatened to sue to bar her memoir from being released.
In addition to the claims against “The Deb” producers of embezzlement, a new allegation was unveiled during the lawsuit, with Wilson “reviv[ing] a fictitious story about Ms. Ghost sexually harassing a lead act[ress] in ‘The Deb.’” The actress is not named in the lawsuit. According to the suit, Wilson’s allegation of Ghost “has absolutely no basis in reality, as the actor that is the subject of this defamatory tale has repeatedly confirmed.”
The lawsuit states, “Rebel knew when she made the statements […] that they were false, and/or acted with reckless disregard of the truth, including because she was informed by the lead actress that Ms. Ghost did not do anything inappropriate or wrongful, and because she was kept fully appraised of the film’s budget. At the time the statements were made, Rebel had no plausible basis and no evidence to support her claims.”
In July 2024, an unnamed spokesperson for “The Deb” producers told IndieWire that Rebel Wilson’s allegations are “false, defamatory, and disappointing,” following the actress/director’s social media post.
“Her self-promotional claims are clearly intended to cause reputational harm to the individuals who have supported her directorial debut film ‘The Deb’ — a joyous movie that we’re very proud of and are looking forward to sharing with audiences,” the spokesperson said. “For her to promote a false narrative to advance her own agenda undermines the film and all the people who worked on this project.”
Producer Ghost is listed as a Golden Globe and Grammy Award nominee who is also a songwriter. Her collaborations include working with Beyoncé, Shakira, John Legend, Florence + The Machine, and James Blunt, with songs for films such as “Cadillac Records” and “The Great Gatsby.” She was formerly the president of Sony Epic Records and is founding partner of Unigram Media Ltd and chairwoman of AI Film.
Cameron, the co-founder of Unigram, produced feature “Kill Your Friends” starring Nicholas Hoult, and previously directed the documentary “Goin’ Down to South Park.”
