Justice Elizabeth Raper found that Rebel Wilson did not defame Charlotte MacInnes in a series of social media posts, ending the defamation claim over remarks tied to The Deb. The ruling lands after two months of court argument and closes a dispute that had spread well beyond the film set.
MacInnes was the lead actor in Wilson’s directorial debut, and the case turned on what Wilson posted to her 11 million followers. Raper said MacInnes had failed to establish that the publications had caused or were likely to cause serious harm.
The Deb posts and the claim
MacInnes claimed Wilson’s posts implied she was a liar and a sellout who walked back a sexual harassment complaint to further her career. The posts said MacInnes confided in Wilson and later recanted that she felt uncomfortable when Amanda Ghost asked to have a shower and a bath together. MacInnes denied making or retracting a complaint.
Her evidence put a narrow factual question at the center of the case: whether the posts reported a real complaint or turned a private exchange into an accusation about her credibility. MacInnes said she had not been uncomfortable when she and Ghost shared a bath in their swimwear after Ghost suffered a medical episode in September 2023.
Wilson, Chrysanthou and Sibtain
Sue Chrysanthou SC accused Wilson of a complete revision of history in her closing address in May, while Wilson denied accusations that she fabricated the complaint or raised it for leverage during disputes with her co-producers over the film’s budget and writing credit. Wilson told the court, “I am known as a truth-teller” and, “I don’t classify it as an attack, I classify it as telling the truth.”
Dauid Sibtain SC said Wilson had “no motive to lie” about something that would endanger her film by driving a wedge between her lead actor and a producer. The court’s finding means MacInnes did not clear the serious-harm threshold, which is the point that separates a bruising argument from a viable defamation win.
Wednesday’s ruling
On Wednesday, Wilson said the process had tested her and that she was “standing up for what I believe is right, while continuing to create work that brings people joy.” For MacInnes, the practical result is that the claim against Wilson has failed, and the posts that triggered the dispute remain judged not defamatory in law.
What exact social media posts Wilson published is still the detail that would let readers test the whole fight line by line, but the judge’s ruling has already done the only thing that mattered in court: it closed the damages path for MacInnes.
