Rebel Wilson is being sued for defamation by three producers of her feature directorial debut The Deb after calling them out on social media for blocking the film’s premiere at this year’s Toronto International Film Festival.
In an Instagram post to her 11 million followers last Wednesday, Wilson said her film had been selected to close this year’s TIFF, only for the “business partners involved in the film” to intervene in a move she described as “absolutely devastating”.
She went on to claim there had been “bad behaviour” on set from producers Amanda Ghost, Gregor Cameron, and Vince Holden, including inappropriate behaviour towards the film’s lead actress and embezzlement of funds from the film’s budget, her reporting of which had led to “vicious and retaliatory behaviour”. Wilson noted, “if the movie doesn’t play at Toronto, it’s because of these absolute f*#ckwits”.
In a statement released to Deadline, a spokesperson for the trio described Wilson’s claims as “false, defamatory, and disappointing”.
Ghost, Cameron, and Holden have since gone on to file a lawsuit in the Los Angeles Superior Court, describing Wilson as “a bully who will disregard the interests of others to promote her own” while also accusing her of unduly trying to claim a writing credit for The Deb, an adaptation of a theatre production from Hannah Reilly that was created through the Rebel Wilson Comedy Commission initiative.
In the defamation complaint, the trio state that Wilson was absent on set for months at a time, behaved unprofessionally with film employees, and repeatedly made “unauthorised disclosures about the Film”. They note that the dispute between them and the director “came to a head” after she tried to seize writing credit for The Deb, despite a contrary decision from the Australian Writers’ Guild, which found in March that screenplay credit does belong to Reilly.
The complaint notes that as much as US$22 million has been invested in the film and that it was “on track to be a resounding success” having been selected for TIFF, but also that the Plaintiffs had to “carefully consider whether to proceed with marketing the film while it was embroiled in numerous credit and licensing disputes”.
Wilson responded to the suit over the weekend with another post on Instagram, writing that “It’s not defamation if it’s the TRUTH”, and urging those involved to let the film play at TIFF and “stop messing about with a rubbish defamation suit”.
It comes nearly 12 months after production began on the rural-set musical comedy, which follows a lovable farm girl and high school outcast, who is certain the upcoming Debutante Ball, ‘the Deb,’ is her one chance to redefine herself. When her cynical city cousin Maeve is exiled to Taylah’s drought-stricken town Dunburn, she thinks the ball is a “heteronormative shit-show” and immediately disrupts the status quo.
In the production announcement, it was stated that Ghost, Cameron, and Len Blavatnik would produce for Unigram and sister company AI Film, working in partnership with Wilson’s Camp Sugar Productions and Bunya Productions, with Danny Cohen executive producing on behalf of Access Entertainment.
Reilly’s theatre production, which includes original songs from singer-songwriter Meg Washington, premiered at the Australian Theatre for Young People’s Rebel Theatre in 2022, after winning the Rebel Wilson Comedy Commission in 2019.