{"id":811302,"date":"2026-10-23T09:40:17","date_gmt":"2026-10-23T09:40:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/811302\/"},"modified":"2026-10-23T09:40:17","modified_gmt":"2026-10-23T09:40:17","slug":"rebel-wilson-awarded-359000-in-second-legal-win-over-her-film-the-deb","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/811302\/","title":{"rendered":"Rebel Wilson awarded $359,000 in second legal win over her film The Deb"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hollywood actor Rebel Wilson has won a second court case over her directorial debut film, The Deb, with the production company that sued her awarded just $10 in damages and ordered to pay her costs.<\/p>\n

UK production firm AI Film sued Ms Wilson in the Supreme Court of NSW for $15 million, claiming false statements Ms Wilson made on her social media accounts and via a fake takedown website had caused the film to be unprofitable.<\/p>\n

But the case has been dismissed by Justice Elisabeth Peden, who found that while Ms Wilson did ask for a malicious website to be created, there was no proof the website caused AI Film any financial loss.<\/p>\n

\"Three<\/p>\n

Rebel Wilson made her directorial debut in The Deb. (Supplied: John Platt)<\/p>\n

The court has awarded the subsidiary company, AI Films, $10 in nominal damages for technical breaches of its social media contract and ordered it to pay Ms Wilson’s company, Camp Sugar, $359,000 in unpaid producer fees, as well as her legal costs.<\/p>\n

It is the second legal victory for Ms Wilson<\/a>, after the lead actor in her film, Charlotte MacInnes, was also unsuccessful in her defamation case against the actor and director.<\/p>\n

AI Film, which was represented by high-profile barrister Sue Chrysanthou SC, lodged its case against Ms Wilson last year, claiming she breached contracts and delayed the release of The Deb.<\/p>\n

The Deb grossed just $335,000 at the local box office.<\/p>\n

\"Charlotte<\/p>\n

Charlotte MacInnes failed in her legal bid to sue Ms Wilson. (ABC News: Abbey Haberecht)<\/p>\n

The court heard Ms Wilson posted to her personal Instagram account that her producers had “embezzled” $900,000 from the film, and that Ms MacInnes had walked back a complaint of sexual harassment during filming to further her own career.<\/p>\n

Justice Peden’s judgement came to the same conclusion as the defamation case; \u00a0Ms MacInnes had made a complaint and later recanted it.<\/p>\n

The judge also found the UK producers had added $900,000 in extra fees for themselves into the movie’s budget without first telling Ms Wilson.<\/p>\n

The producers also claimed the film was tainted by the existence of a website called amandaghostsucks.com, which made claims that another The Deb producer, Amanda Ghost, was a “pimp”, and a “madam” who procured young women for sex.<\/p>\n

\"Ms<\/p>\n

Claims were made in a website against producer Amanda Ghost. (ABC News: Abubakr Sajid)<\/p>\n

Justice Peden’s judgement found statements in the websites “were actuated with malice on Ms Wilson’s part,” but that none of the people named were AI Film producers, and the company could not prove it had suffered loss.<\/p>\n

“I am not satisfied AI Film \u2026 have demonstrated a causal connection between the misleading or deceptive representations and any loss or damage,” her judgement read.<\/p>\n

Instead, emails between the producers from October 2025 showed international distributors raised concerns about the movie feeling “small and distinctly Australian,” the court heard.<\/p>\n

\"actor<\/p>\n

Ms Wilson says in a social media post that defending herself had come “at an enormous personal, emotional and financial cost”. (Instagram: @rebelwilson)<\/p>\n

On her Instagram account on Friday, Ms Wilson thanked the court.<\/p>\n

“This girl never knew how much she was going to need that law degree!!,” she said.<\/p>\n

“Defending myself has come at an enormous personal, emotional and financial cost. But I’m proud that I stood my ground \u2014 for myself and for others I was trying to protect.”<\/p>\n

Ms MacInnes has lodged an appeal against her defamation case loss, and AI Film’s producers are also suing Ms Wilson for defamation in California.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Hollywood actor Rebel Wilson has won a second court case over her directorial debut film, The Deb, with…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":811303,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[266107,266106,185549,266109,6491,185550,96,266105,28266,266108,266103,266104,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-811302","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-actor-and-director-rebel-wilson","tag-ai-film-productions","tag-amanda-ghost","tag-camp-sugar","tag-celebrities","tag-charlotte-macinnes","tag-entertainment","tag-justice-elisabeth-peden","tag-rebel-wilson","tag-sue-chrysanthou-sc","tag-supreme-court-nsw","tag-the-deb-film","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/811302","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=811302"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/811302\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/811303"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=811302"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=811302"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=811302"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}