Rebel Wilson’s film producers have accused her of “vicious lies” and cast doubt on accusations she made against Sacha Baron Cohen.
On Monday (August 29), three producers behind musical The Deb filed an amended complaint in Los Angeles after Wilson accused them of “inappropriate behaviour towards the lead actress of the film [and] embezzling funds from the film’s budget.”
Wilson made the comments via an Instagram video in which she named the film’s producers Amanda Ghost and Gregor Cameron together with executive producer Vince Holden.
The amended complaint claims that Wilson was frequently absent from set and made disclosures about the film that were confidential. They went on to claim Wilson “simply made them up with actual malice” over a dispute about credits on the film.
The complaint reads (as per Variety): “Because Rebel shirked her professional obligations to the Plaintiffs, the Film, and everyone dedicated to its success, she started flailing and inventing problems to obfuscate her own failures.”
It also went on to claim that Wilson “has a history of fabricating false and malicious lies to hide her own lack of professionalism and advance her own self-interest…This lawsuit is about holding Rebel accountable for her attempts to bully Plaintiffs into conceding to her unreasonable demands by spreading vicious lies without regard for the irreparable damage her reckless words would cause on the hard-earned personal and professional reputations of Plaintiffs.”
Rebel Wilson on May 16, 2024 in Los Angeles, California. CREDIT: Getty/Photo by JC Olivera/Variety via Getty Images
The complaint also claims that Wilson’s allegations against Baron Cohen for inappropriate behaviour on the set of The Brothers Grimsby were untrue – claims she initially made in her recent memoir, Rebel Rising.
In the original version of the memoir, the Australian actor spoke about her experience of working with Baron Cohen on the 2016 comedy film in detail.
However, in the UK version of the memoir, the passage where the allegations were made was later replaced by a reference to “the worst experience of my professional life. An incident that left me feeling bullied, humiliated and compromised,” something Baron-Cohen’s team later described as a “clear victory”.
Wilson added in the memoir: “It can’t be printed here due to the peculiarities of the law in England and Wales,” she continued in the book. The chapter also includes black lines redacting other passages.
Baron Cohen responded by denying the initial accusations. A statement by his representatives read: “While we appreciate the importance of speaking out, these demonstrably false claims are directly contradicted by extensive detailed evidence, including contemporaneous documents, film footage and eyewitness accounts from those present before, during and after the production of The Brothers Grimsby.”
Baron Cohen’s reps also provided anonymous statements in support of his response from nine people involved in the film, five of whom claim they witnessed the incident and dispute Wilson’s accusations.
In response to this UK redacted release, Cohen’s team told Deadline: “HarperCollins did not fact check this chapter in the book prior to publication and took the sensible but terribly belated step of deleting Rebel Wilson’s defamatory claims once presented with evidence that they were false.”
“Printing falsehoods is against the law in the UK and Australia; this is not a ‘peculiarity’ as Ms Wilson said, but a legal principle that has existed for many hundreds of years.”
“This is a clear victory for Sacha Baron Cohen and confirms what we said from the beginning – that this is demonstrably false.”
Sacha Baron Cohen. CREDIT: Rick Rycroft-Pool/Getty Images
This is now also referenced in the amended complaint from those behind The Deb.
They claim in the complaint: “In her autobiography, Rebel included false allegations about well-known actor Sacha Baron Cohen’s alleged inappropriate behaviour…Due to these false allegations, portions of her autobiography were redacted when published in the United Kingdom and Australia.
“Nevertheless, Rebel successfully used the furore around such allegations to promote the sale of her book. As with this situation, Rebel hypocritically played the victim in order to elicit public sympathy in the hope that it would advance her professional self-interest,” they allege.
The suit also claims that Wilson fought for credits on the music of the film and “demanded that Plaintiffs provide her a record label with an external music group (a demand which was well outside of Plaintiffs’ power to provide).”
They went onto claim: “When Rebel did not get her way in this these disputes, she 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.
“In addition, Rebel claimed, without any basis, that Ms. Ghost and Mr. Cameron were embezzling from the film’s budget. These statements are false, and Rebel knew they were false at the time she made them. Rebel knew that the actress at issue had repeatedly and unequivocally denied any form of wrongful conduct by Plaintiffs, but Rebel doubled down on her false story to promote her own selfish interests in her disputes with Plaintiffs, without regard for the Plaintiffs or the young, upcoming lead actress who she dragged into the [centre] of her malicious scheme.”
They added: “Rebel knew when she made the statements … that they were false, and/or acted with reckless disregard of the truth, including because she was informed by the lead actress that Ms. Ghost did not do anything inappropriate or wrongful, and because she was kept fully appraised of the film’s budget…At the time the statements were made, Rebel had no plausible basis and no evidence to support her claims.”
Wilson has since responded to the complaint on her Instagram Stories this evening (July 31). She wrote (via Variety): “Clearly these recent press articles and constant retaliations against me for speaking the truth on my small Australian movie are FALSE. All I did was tell the truth about these absolute fuckwits’ – now they launch a bogus defamation suit and bogus articles to inflict further harm.”
In other news, Wilson was praised recently for “helping” a fan with body dysmorphia through her memoir, Rebel Rising.
For more help, advice or more information regarding sexual harassment, assault and rape in the UK, visit the Rape Crisis charity website. In the US, visit RAINN.
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