Producers behind Rebel Wilson‘s directorial debut The Deb sued the actress for defamation on Friday, two days after Wilson went on social media alleging that they embezzled funds and sabotaged her film from premiering at the Toronto International Film Festival.
In the lawsuit, obtained by Rolling Stone, The Deb’s producers Amanda Ghost, Gregor Cameron, and Vince Holden deny Wilson’s claims, further alleging that Wilson was pushing for credit on the musical’s script and songs. As the suit states, the musical was written by Hannah Reilly, a scholarship recipient of Wilson’s. Toward the end of 2023, Wilson contested the writing credit with the Australian Writers’ Guild, and the Guild gave Wilson an “additional writing by” credit. Wilson later contested the ruling as flawed, per the suit.
“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 producers allege in the suit filed in Los Angeles.
A representative for Wilson did not immediately respond to Rolling Stone’s request for comment.
After the writing credit didn’t change, the suit claims that Wilson “revived a fictitious story about Ms. Ghost sexually harassing a lead actor in ‘The Deb’ that has absolutely no basis in reality, as the actor that is the subject of this defamatory tale has repeatedly confirmed.” The producers also state that Wilson had “no basis” in her embezzlement allegations.
In Wilson’s video posted to Instagram on Wednesday, the actress accused the producers of attempting to “bury” the film. “It’s awesome that [The Deb] got selected for closing night of the Toronto Film Festival, which is like the best platform to be a first-time female director. I mean, it’s huge. It’s massive,” Wilson said in her video. “So to have the joy of the movie being selected is one thing. But then to have the business partners that are involved in that movie turn around and say that, ‘No, the movie can’t premiere,’ is just beyond devastating.”
Regarding Wilson’s allegation that they sabotaged her TIFF debut, the producers allege in the suit that they “continuously attempted to resolve the disputes in good faith but Rebel had other ideas,” adding that “the plan was always to show the Film at TIFF.”
“Plaintiffs and the Film’s financiers had to consider carefully whether to invest in the marketing of the Film while it was embroiled in numerous credit and licensing disputes instigated by Rebel,” the suit said.
The producers called Wilson “a bully who will disregard the interests of others to promote her own.”
“She falsely accused a fellow actor of inappropriate behavior to publicize her book. She granted a young artist a scholarship to develop a screenplay for ‘The Deb’ (the ‘Film’), and then tried to claim writing credit for herself,” the suit alleges. “And, when Rebel did not get her way in business negotiations with the Plaintiffs concerning ‘The Deb’ (including the writing credit), Rebel tried to intimidate Plaintiffs into giving her what she wanted by leveraging her persona and platform, with many millions of followers, to spread malicious lies about the Plaintiffs.”
This isn’t the first controversy Wilson’s been caught in this year. In her memoir, Wilson accused Sacha Baron Cohen of behaving like a “massive asshole” while filming the movie The Brothers Grimsby. Baron Cohen called the claims “demonstrably false”; the actress’ publisher later announced that the book’s U.K. edition would redact the passages about her experiences with Cohen.
