Rebel Wilson has scored a major legal victory after Australia’s Federal Court dismissed every defamation claim brought against her by Charlotte MacInnes, the lead actress in Wilson’s directorial debut, The Deb. According to Variety, Justice Elizabeth Raper rejected all of MacInnes’s claims and ordered her to pay Wilson’s legal costs.
The lawsuit centered on four Instagram posts Wilson shared between September 2024 and July 2025. MacInnes argued the posts falsely suggested she had changed her account of an uncomfortable incident involving The Deb producer Amanda Ghost to advance her own career. The case ultimately required the court to examine what happened behind the scenes during the film’s production and whether Wilson’s public statements crossed the line into defamation.
The dispute stemmed from an incident in September 2023, when MacInnes and Ghost went swimming at Bondi Beach before returning to the Sydney apartment where they were staying. Ghost later said she experienced a severe reaction to the cold water, prompting the pair to get into a bath together while still wearing their swimsuits. That moment later became central to the legal battle.
Turns out this wasn’t the courtroom twist many expected
Justice Raper found that only one of the four Instagram posts carried the meaning MacInnes claimed it did. The September 2024 post suggested MacInnes had changed her story about feeling uncomfortable during the bathroom incident. However, the judge ruled that this meaning was not defamatory because an ordinary person would not necessarily think less of someone simply for changing their account of events.
The court also found MacInnes failed to prove the post caused, or was likely to cause, serious harm to her reputation. At the same time, Raper concluded Wilson had established that the conveyed meaning was substantially true. According to the judgment, the balance of probabilities showed that MacInnes had initially expressed discomfort to Wilson the following day before later changing her version of events.
Justice Raper described both MacInnes’s and Ghost’s accounts as inconsistent, calling each woman an unreliable historian. The judge also found that Ghost, who was 49 at the time, had placed MacInnes, then 25, in an awkward and stressful position by relying on her for care during the episode. However, the court stopped short of deciding whether Ghost’s conduct was sexual in nature because neither party had asked for a ruling on that issue.
MacInnes’s breach-of-confidence claim also failed. Raper ruled she had not proven she made a complaint of sexual harassment, which was the information she alleged Wilson improperly disclosed. The judge further noted there was no evidence the Instagram posts had harmed MacInnes’s career, pointing out she signed with Atlantic Records in October 2025 and released two singles afterward.
During closing arguments, MacInnes’s barrister accused Wilson of fabricating claims and argued her own witnesses had damaged her credibility. While Justice Raper said she had serious doubts about the reliability of all three women involved, she ultimately accepted Wilson’s version of the key issue, concluding that MacInnes had raised concerns about her discomfort before later changing her account.
The ruling is the latest example of a high-profile entertainment dispute being revisited in public. A similar dynamic played out recently when Cara Delevingne confirmed she was entangled with Amber Heard years after speculation first emerged following Heard’s divorce from Johnny Depp.
Wilson later responded to the ruling on Instagram, saying she was “grateful this chapter has reached its conclusion” and is now focused on her family and future work. According to the outlet, the decision brings the high-profile legal dispute over The Deb to a close.
Published: Jul 22, 2026 08:15 pm