Rebel Wilson grilled over ‘champion of women’ claim in blockbuster defamation trial

Rebel Wilson has been grilled for describing herself as a “champion of women” as she takes the stand in her blockbuster defamation trial.

The Australian actor also denied suggestions that she “mistreated women” during the making of her film The Deb.

Ms Wilson’s co-star in the film, Charlotte MacInnes, is suing the Hollywood star over a series of social media posts she alleges implies that she walked back a sexual harassment complaint against one of the film’s producers, Amanda Ghost.

Ms Wilson has travelled from the US to be present for the trial.

Ms MacInnes’ barrister, Sue Chrysanthou SC, read out part of Ms Wilson’s affidavit to the court in which the Hollywood star wrote: “I regard myself as a champion of women and believe that my commitment to The Deb is an illustration of this.”

“As you sit here … do you still say that you regard yourself as a champion of women?” Ms Chrysanthou asked.

“Yes,” the Pitch Perfect star replied.

“You are not a champion of women at all, are you?” Ms Chrysanthou pressed.

“I think if you look across my 25-year career you can see many evidences of me supporting women, promoting women. If you like I can go into detail about that,” Ms Wilson replied.

She denied ever mistreating Ms MacInnes and Ms Ghost, responding “that’s nonsense” when Ms Chrysanthou submitted that she had “bullied” the women.

The Bridesmaids star has claimed an Instagram post made by her wife, Ramona Agruma, last Friday was a pregnancy meme, and was not “mocking” the evidence of Ms MacInnes.

The Instagram story contains an image of Dory from Finding Nemo and is captioned: “I suffer from short-term memory loss … or do I? I can’t remember.”

“I felt as though she was mocking the evidence that I gave,” Ms MacInnes told the trial on Friday morning.

Rebel denies ‘smear’ site claims

Ms Wilson has denied allegations she ordered the crisis PR firm she hired to create “take down” websites about Ms Ghost, with one of the sites posting unfounded allegations the producer was the “Indian Ghislaine Maxwell”.

The actor rejected submissions she and her former US lawyer, Bryan Freedman, “conspired” with the PR firm The Agency Group (TAG), to publish the sites about Ms Ghost.

Proceedings hit a hurdle on Tuesday as the A-Lister was probed extensively on whether Mr Freedman had hired a publicist on her behalf, with Ms Wilson maintaining the publicist was simply hired by the lawyer “to work on my case”.

She rejected suggestions by Ms Chrysanthou that she was being “utterly dishonest” and refused to accept Ms Chrysanthou’s proposition because she has “lied about this topic for over a year”.

“No,” the actor replied.

A TAG employee, Katie Case, last week told the court she was tasked with editing a draft copy of what would be published on the attack website.

While she was not aware of who wrote the draft at the time, she later discovered it was authored by Ms Wilson’s production company Camp Sugar.

Ms Wilson on Tuesday said anyone could have put that her company modified the document, but was unable to explain beyond that.

Rebel’s claim on wife’s Dory post in court

Ms Wilson on Tuesday told the court she believed her pregnant wife was instead poking fun at “pregnancy brain”, saying her wife often posted things about being heavily pregnant.

“When I saw it I just assumed she makes a lot of funny memes and posts about having pregnancy brain...so I assumed it was about pregnancy brain,” Ms Wilson told the court.

“I thought it’s interesting that (Ms MacInnes) thought it referred to her.”

Ms Wilson claims the younger actor told her she felt uncomfortable following a bath she shared with Ms Ghost in the producer’s Bondi penthouse in September 2023 after Ms Ghost allegedly suffered a medical episode during a sunset swim at Bondi Beach.

The Hollywood star alleges Ms MacInnes later withdrew the complaint to score a lucrative record deal and a role in another of Ms Ghost’s productions.

Ms Wilson aired the claims in a series of Instagram posts described by Ms Chrysanthou as “slagging off” the young actor during the first week of the trial.

Ms MacInnes denies making a complaint and told the court that she “never” said the bath made her feel uncomfortable.

Ms Wilson will continue to give evidence as the trial continues this week, with Ms Chrysanthou expected to cross-examine her for two days.

More to come