‘Grateful’ Rebel Wilson thanks judge after defamation case thrown out
Updated July 22, 2026 — 5:10pm,first published 2:00pm
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Hollywood actor Rebel Wilson has thanked a Sydney judge after successfully defending a high-stakes defamation case brought against her by the star of her directorial debut.
In a decision on Wednesday, Federal Court Justice Elizabeth Raper dismissed the costly lawsuit and ordered the lead actor of Australian musical film The Deb, Charlotte MacInnes, to pay Wilson’s legal costs.
Rebel Wilson outside the Federal Court in Sydney in April.Sitthixay Ditthavong
MacInnes, 28, launched defamation proceedings last year against Wilson over a series of Instagram stories that she alleged portrayed her as a “sellout” who was “paid off” by a producer on The Deb, Amanda Ghost, to recant a sexual harassment complaint against Ghost.
In a win for Wilson, Raper found those meanings were not conveyed by the stories.
In a post on Instagram after the decision, the Pitch Perfect star said: “Thank you to the judge and the Australian legal system who I have the utmost respect for.
Charlotte MacInnes outside the Federal Court in April.Sitthixay Ditthavong
“Thank you to everyone who has supported me. I’m grateful this chapter has reached its conclusion, and I’m looking forward to getting back to what I love most, my family and my work.”
Wilson, 46, appeared in The Deb as well as serving as director and one of the film’s producers.
The case centred on a series of Instagram stories posted by Wilson between September 2024 and July last year which were each viewable for 24 hours.
In the first story, Wilson said MacInnes made a complaint to her as director during pre-production of The Deb that Ghost asked MacInnes “to have a bath and shower with her, and it made her feel uncomfortable”. Wilson alleged MacInnes later changed her story.
Raper found the 2024 Instagram story did convey a claim that MacInnes “changed her story about feeling uncomfortable about what happened in the bathroom”, but she concluded that this did not defame the young actor.
Rebel Wilson’s barrister, Dauid Sibtain, SC, leaves the Federal Court in Sydney on Wednesday.Peter Rae
Even if the statement had been defamatory, the judge said it would not have met a serious harm threshold for bringing a defamation claim. Had it satisfied the serious harm test, Raper said Wilson had also proven that it was substantially true to say MacInnes changed her story.
The judge did not accept that the Instagram story conveyed the further meaning that MacInnes was “paid off” by a producer or was “employed and received [a] ... record deal ‘in return’ for changing her story”.
“It is my view that the ordinary reasonable reader would have scrolled through the post relatively quickly and his or her reaction would have been impressionistic and fleeting,” Raper said.
University of Sydney Professor David Rolph, an expert in defamation law, said “the nature of the publication is highly relevant to whether, or what, defamatory meanings are conveyed”.
“Social media publications on Instagram are characteristically informal,” he said. “Features like stories are transient, given that they disappear after a period of time.”
There is no dispute Ghost, then 49, and MacInnes, then 25, shared a bath on September 5, 2023, while wearing their swimming costumes. They say it was in response to a medical episode in which Ghost had a reaction to cold water after swimming at Bondi Beach.
At the time, the pair were staying at a rented Bondi apartment with a third woman, Ghost’s assistant Pia Ashcroft, who was head of music at Ghost’s production company Unigram.
Raper said in her decision that “[to] say that what occurred … at Bondi Beach and the apartment thereafter was very unusual would be an understatement”.
“It is clear that Ms MacInnes did find the incident on 5 September 2023 bizarre,” the judge said.
Producer Amanda Ghost (centre) shared a bath with Charlotte MacInnes.Peter Rae
“It is my view that it did make her uncomfortable, that is, she was placed by Ms Ghost in a difficult position. I am not being asked by any party to determine whether the conduct was sexualised in any way.”
The judge said it was her view that MacInnes said something to Wilson on September 6, 2023, about the bath incident making her feel uncomfortable. However, she did not find that MacInnes made a sexual harassment complaint.
The judge accepted Wilson had a “propensity to exaggerate events and her evidence could be found to be untruthful on occasion”, but said the evidence established she “acted in a manner consistent with a complaint being made and her own contemporaneous documentary trail supports this”.
Raper said it was not necessary to decide MacInnes’ motivation for “now saying that she did not have this conversation”.
However, the judge said it was her view that MacInnes changed her story about being uncomfortable “at least in part because … she was concerned she was losing control of the situation and sought to contain it and to ‘walk back’ her complaint that she was not ‘personally’ uncomfortable.”
The court heard Wilson called MacInnes on September 7, 2023, before texting Ghost: “Charlotte says all good. She just meant ‘it was a bizarre situation’, not that she felt personally uncomfortable x.”
But Wilson raised the alleged complaint about the bath incident again in October 2023.
MacInnes’ barrister, Sue Chrysanthou, SC, had alleged she did so as leverage amid a commercial dispute with the film’s producers rather than to protect a young actor, an allegation Wilson denied.
Wilson is facing separate lawsuits in Australia and the US brought by the film’s international co-producers, including Ghost.
Dauid Sibtain, SC, acting for Wilson, said during the trial that the central issue was “whether Ms MacInnes reported to Ms Wilson that she’d been asked by Ms Ghost to … bathe with her and whether she said it made her feel uncomfortable, and whether she later changed her story”.
“Our case is that that is true: she changed her story,” he said.
The judge did not accept submissions by MacInnes’ lawyers that Wilson’s claims on Instagram were likely to have carried particular weight in the film industry.
“It was my impression from all the evidence that Ms Wilson is known for being outspoken but not necessarily reliable,” Raper said.
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