Rebel Wilson called out two producers of her new movie The Deb on social media, and now they are suing her for defamation. Wilson posted a video on Instagram last week accusing executive producer Vince Holden and producers Amanda Ghost and Gregor Cameron of “bad behavior” on set. Two days later, a defamation suit was filed in the Superior Court of California, County of Los Angeles, according to a report by PEOPLE.
In her original post on Wednesday, July 10, Wilson’s main complaint was that the producers were blocking her new movie from premiering at the Toronto International Film Festival. She also accused them of “inappropriate behavior towards the lead actress of the film, embezzling funds from the film’s budget – which we really needed because we’re a small movie, you know? So kind of really important things.” The Deb is Wilson’s featured directorial debut, and the producers’ lawsuit claims that Wilson acted unprofessionally, not them.
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“She flatly refused to collaborate with Plaintiffs, absconded from the Film for months at a time, behaved unprofessionally with employees of the Film, and repeatedly made unauthorized and improper disclosures about the Film,” the lawsuit reads. “Rebel’s goal in these several disputes was to get credit for work she did not do, and to overshadow young, upcoming artists who truly deserved the credit.”
As for the TIFF, the producers said that they “had to consider carefully whether to proceed with marketing the Film while it was embroiled in numerous credit and licensing disputes instigated by Rebel… Even though the plan was always to show the Film at TIFF, Rebel attempted to force the issue and bully them into capitulating to her other unreasonable demands by leveraging her popularity on social media to spread these malicious and baseless lies about [the producers] to her 11 million Instagram followers.”
Wilson responded publicly to the lawsuit with another post on Instagram, which featured a group shot of her with the film’s cast and crew. Shew wrote: “It’s not defamation if it’s the TRUTH.” She shared other photos and commentary on her Instagram Story, writing: “They’ve been called out for their bad behavior, and now they file a defamation claim. Ummm I’ve pretty sure I have 200 witnesses to prove what I’m saying is right.”
Sources close to the production told PEOPLE that the cast and crew is standing by Wilson in this dispute. Some of this support is visible in public comments on Wilson’s post. Several confirmed participants in the movie have sided with Wilson there.
For now, the dispute about TIFF has been resolved in Wilson’s favor. According to a report by Deadline, The Deb will premiere on Sept. 15 to close out the festival as previously planned. In the meantime, the lawsuit will move forward on its own schedule.
