Rebel Wilson Legal Battle With Charlotte MacInnes Gets YouTube Stream

Rebel Wilson‘s legal battle with Charlotte MacInnes, the lead actress in her directorial debut The Deb, will get underway in Australia next week — and it will be live-streamed on YouTube.

MacInnes is suing Wilson in the New South Wales branch of the Federal Court of Australia. She claims that the Pitch Perfect star damaged her reputation by alleging that she was sexually harassed by The Deb producer Amanda Ghost, and then colluded with Ghost to cover up what took place. 

A hearing is scheduled for Monday, April 20, at 10.15 AM local time. In a listing, the Federal Court of Australia said the hearing would be streamed on the court’s YouTube channel to “ensure open justice.” It is not clear whether Wilson or MacInnes will attend.

The row burst into the open in summer 2024 when The Deb was selected to premiere at the Toronto Film Festival. Fearing the premiere would be scuppered, Wilson posted a video on Instagram in which she accused The Deb producers of “inappropriate behaviour towards the lead actress.”

Wilson’s position is that Ghost abused her power and made MacInnes uncomfortable by sharing a bath with the actress when they were staying in a Sydney apartment in September 2023. Ghost and MacInnes do not deny that they bathed together, but both say it was a non-sexual encounter after Ghost experienced a medical incident. MacInnes denies that the incident made her uncomfortable.

The event is at the heart of a sprawling legal battle, playing out across different fronts in Los Angeles and Australia, overshadowing The Deb, a feel-good movie about outback teens attending a debutante ball. The film was finally released in Australia earlier this month, but it does not yet have a distributor in the U.S.

In California, Wilson is attempting to overturn a lower court ruling rejecting her anti-SLAPP motion to dismiss a defamation lawsuit brought by The Deb’s British producers, Ghost, her husband Gregor Cameron, and Vince Holden. They allege Wilson is a liar and a bully who has smeared them after being denied a writing credit on The Deb.

During an appeal hearing this week, Wilson’s attorney Allyson Thompson reportedly attempted to downplay the actress’s Instagram video. A report by the Courthouse News Service said Thompson described the video as being posted in a “heated moment,” and that her allegations were hyperbolic, vague, and not verifiable assertions of fact.

“When is the last time you took a bath or shower with your boss?” Thompson reportedly said. “My client found that to be inappropriate.”