Australian actor Rebel Wilson asked her crisis communications firm to publish a website that accused a producer of her own film of being the “Indian Ghislaine Maxwell”, a Sydney court has heard.
The Federal Court is hearing a defamation case brought by Charlotte MacInnes, the lead actor in Ms Wilson’s latest movie The Deb, in which she alleges Ms Wilson claimed she walked back allegations of being sexually harassed by producer Amanda Ghost, in exchange for acting jobs.
In her statement of claim, Ms MacInnes said her professional relationship with Ms Wilson started to break down early on in the making of The Deb.
Ms MacInnes claims Ms Wilson fabricated a story about Ms Ghost mistreating her in September 2023, and posted it publicly on her Instagram.
Charlotte MacInnes (right) claims Ms Wilson defamed her in an Instagram post. (AAP: Dean Lewins)
She also accuses Ms Wilson of organising a website with false and malicious claims about her and Ms Ghost.
Ms Wilson, who was not in court on Tuesday, will deny the imputations of her posts were defamatory.
Court hears details of alleged smear campaignÂ
On Tuesday, the court heard from Katie Case, a former vice-president at US based firm The Agency Group (TAG), which was handling crisis communications for Ms Wilson.
Text messages tendered to the court show Ms Case received a text from TAG chief executive Melissa Nathan in August 2024, telling her that Ms Wilson wanted “one of those sites”.
“It can be really really harsh… making her a madam basically,” Ms Nathan texted Ms Case.
“Oh my god lol ok this one will be fun,” Ms Case replied in a text.
Court documents allege the site was published at the addresses amandaghost.com and amandaghostsucks.com, and accused Ms Ghost of being a ‘madam’.
Ms Wilson was not in court for the hearing on Tuesday. (AAP: Adelaide Lang )
“We’re in this until Amanda Ghost is exposed for the evil that she is,” the website’s copy read.
“As the Indian Ghislaine Maxwell, she trades on pleasure for protection…
“Failing in music, she turned full pimp, reinventing herself as a theatrical producer alongside her husband while really procuring young women for the pleasure of the extremely wealthy.”
Ghislaine Maxwell was in 2022 sentenced to 20 years in jail for helping her associate Jeffrey Epstein sexually abuse teenage girls.
Court documents also said the website claimed Ms Ghost started The Great Gatsby stage musical “to simply reward an actress for remaining silent about the abuse she suffered at Ghost’s hands”.
 Ms MacInnes claims her professional relationship with Ms Wilson started to break down early on in the making of The Deb. (Supplied: John Platt)
Ms Case told the court her PR firm called it a “whistleblower site”, which was published with the purpose of encouraging anyone with information about the subject of the site to come forward.
Justice Elizabeth Raper asked Ms Case what she meant by whistleblower site.
“What you mean is, there’s no actual whistleblower,” Justice Raper asked Ms Case.
“It’s just created to look like it is?”
“That’s correct,” Ms Case replied.
Ms Case told the court she was asked to edit the copy for the site.
Under cross-examination from Ms Wilson’s counsel, Ms Case told the court she could not be entirely sure who wrote the initial copy; just that Melissa Nathan sent it to her for editing.
In her defence filed in court, Ms Wilson denied that there were defamatory meanings conveyed by the posts and website.
If the court finds they were defamatory, Ms Wilson’s legal case will rely partially on the defence of truth.
The incident at Bondi Beach
The sexual harassment claim Ms MacInnes denies was ever true, centred around an incident at Bondi Beach on September 5, 2023.
Lawyers for Ms MacInnes said she and Ms Ghost were swimming at Bondi Beach, when Ms Ghost had a severe medical reaction to the cold water and had a bath back at her apartment to warm up.
Ms Wilson claims Ms MacInnes raised concerns at work the next day about feeling uncomfortable when Ms Ghost asked the young actress to get in the bath with her.
But Ms MacInnes claims she was never concerned, and a complaint was never made.
The trial is expected to go over nine days.