Mr Kelley took legal action after his lawyers warned Chatfield her online comments about him were false and indefensible.<\/p>\n
Chatfield didn\u2019t contest the claim, with Justice Wendy Abraham making orders against her by consent on Thursday afternoon.<\/p>\n
On top of that, the court ordered Chatfield to cover Mr Kelley\u2019s legal costs \u2014 estimated at $30,000 \u2014 leaving her with a bill topping $100,000.<\/p>\n
The 30-year-old, who boasts about 550,000 Instagram followers, published the defamatory remarks about Mr Kelley in her Stories at about 5.30pm on May 7.<\/p>\n
![\"Abbie](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/2d330a5d5002fd4ead771b39ad0dda6d963a39ca-16x9-x0y13w1080h607.jpg\")
Camera IconAbbie Chatfield has admitted to defaming her former \u2018best male friend\u2019 after accusing him of supporting genocide and child slaughter. Credit: Instagram @abbiechatfield<\/p>\n
Earlier that day, Chatfield had posted in support of Greens leader Adam Bandt, who lost his Melbourne seat to Labor\u2019s Sarah Witty at the 2025 federal election.<\/p>\n
Mr Kelley, who has known Chatfield since their school days in 2011, responded with a private message containing a video and comment about Mr Bandt.<\/p>\n
Further private messages were exchanged between Chatfield and Mr Kelley, which she later shared with her Instagram followers.<\/p>\n
In one exchange, Chatfield wrote: \u201cWhy are you sending me this..? Are you pro Israel? Gross.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mr Kelley replied: \u201cSending you this because it\u2019s incredible news that he lost his seat. And I\u2019m going to sleep better at night knowing the Jewish population of Melbourne will feel safer with him gone. And yes, as a supporter of gay and women\u2019s rights, I am pro Israel, having been to the region twice.\u201d<\/p>\n
Chatfield responded: \u201cOkay so you\u2019ve lost the plot. By (sic) dude lmao.\u201d<\/p>\n
The former Bachelor star then posted parts of the conversation to her Stories, naming and tagging Mr Kelley.<\/p>\n
![\"Abbie](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/60d85057ea7ac1e2cbf4f7c4bad19736b4d9095b.jpg\")
Camera IconAbbie Chatfield and Heath Kelley previously made headlines in 2019 after a raunchy online video showed them dancing together. Credit: Instagram<\/p>\n
In her Instagram Stories, Chatfield addressed Mr Kelley directly.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd, yeah, so Heath Kelley\u2026 I mean I\u2019m actually not shocked that you became a right-wing troll, because that\u2019s all you were ever going to amount to,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnyway, Heath Kelley, Heath Kelley, Heath Kelley. Any of my friends from high school watching this, just so \u2014 Heath Kelley supports genocide if you want to reconsider your friendships.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Story remained live on her account until at least 1.15pm on May 8.<\/p>\n
In his statement of claim, Mr Kelley said Chatfield\u2019s comments were \u201clikely to cause serious harm to Mr Kelley\u2019s reputation\u201d due to her large Instagram following.<\/p>\n
The former friends shared between 130 and 150 mutual Instagram contacts, meaning the Story was likely seen by a significant portion of Mr Kelley\u2019s social network.<\/p>\n
Mr Kelley also alleged that Chatfield breached his confidence by publishing their private exchanges.<\/p>\n
The pair previously made headlines in 2019 after a raunchy online video showed them dancing together, with Chatfield grinding against Mr Kelley and saying, \u201cI love this song and I love this man.\u201d<\/p>\n
Fresh from her stint on The Bachelor, Chatfield was quick to deny any romantic link, describing Mr Kelley as \u201cmy best friend of ten years.\u201d<\/p>\n
PerthNow has contacted Abbie Chatfield for a comment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Abbie Chatfield has admitted to defaming her former \u2018best male friend\u2019 after accusing him of supporting genocide and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":200289,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[64,63,10466,134,995,427],"class_list":["post-200288","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tv","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-celebrity-gossip","tag-entertainment","tag-influencers","tag-tv"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/200288","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=200288"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/200288\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/200289"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=200288"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=200288"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=200288"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}