Three producers backing Rebel Wilson’s filmmaking debut, The Deb, filed suit against her for defamation after she accused them of embezzlement and sexual misconduct. Wilson said in a Wednesday Instagram video that she had reported the producers to them last year after learning of “not minor things, big things” pertaining to “inappropriate behaviour towards the lead actress of the film” and “embezzling funds from the film’s budget.” She said that they were preventing the film from having its world premiere in September at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) in 2024.
In the complaint filed on Friday in Los Angeles Supreme Court, producers Vince Holden, Gregor Cameron, and Amanda Ghost claim Wilson falsified to get a writing credit on the movie and to have The Deb released at TIFF. Wilson and the producers had a tense working relationship. Wilson reportedly declined to assist, abandoned the project for months, and disclosed information about the film on multiple occasions without authorization or approval. They assert that the conflict escalated when she attempted to take writing credit for the film from Wilson’s theatre scholarship recipient Hannah Reilly, even though the Australian Writers’ Guild had ruled in March that Reilly should have received the script credit. Wilson should have received “additional writing by” credit.
Wilson allegedly accused Ghost in 2023 of assaulting the primary actress in the movie when she failed to get what she wanted. The actress “soundly denied any claims of inappropriate behaviour” made by the producer, according to the lawsuit, after which Wilson acknowledged she was unaware of any particular accusations of sexual misbehaviour. The producers assert that she resurrected the accusations in her Wednesday Instagram post, stating that Ghost “has a history of doing this kind of thing, mainly to music artists.”
Other purportedly disparaging remarks include a charge against Ghost and Cameron of defrauding movie money. The producers were cautious even though The Deb was chosen to have its TIFF debut because it was involved in multiple credit and licensing conflicts that were purportedly started by Wilson. She threatened to accuse the three of illicit conduct that was inappropriate on set to her 11 million Instagram followers, according to the lawsuit, in an attempt to intimidate them into complying with her requests.