Though she is facing a defamation suit, Rebel Wilson isn’t backing down.
The “Pitch Perfect” actress fired back at the producers of her directorial debut “The Deb” after they filed an amended complaint on Monday evening. In an Instagram story, Wilson took aim at Len Blavatnik, the billionaire whose AI Film financed the coming-of-age musical.
“Len Blavatnik, please stop funding and protecting Amanda Ghost, Gregor Cameron and Vince Holden,” Wilson wrote. “Clearly these recent press articles and constant retaliations against me for speaking the truth on my small Australian movie are FALSE. All I did was tell the truth about these absolute fuckwits’ – now they launch a bogus defamation suit and bogus articles to inflict further harm.”
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Blavatnik declined comment. Wilson declined further comment.
In their amended complaint, “The Deb” producers Ghost and Cameron and executive producer Holden claimed that Wilson defamed them in a previous Instagram post in which she accused the trio of embezzling money from the film’s budget and stated that Ghost sexually harassed one of the lead actresses.
Ghost and Holden also serve as executives at Blavatnik’s AI Film. According to company’s website, Holden launched AI Film in 2012 and “continues to manage and run the AI Film Group of companies and its financial interests.” And Ghost has served as CEO of the deep-pocketed film producer and financier, whose credits include such indie hits as “Hacksaw Ridge” and “I, Tonya,” since 2019. The Grammy- and Golden Globe-nominated singer/songwriter who was a frequent Beyoncé collaborator before transitioning to film producing, is no stranger to controversy. In 2010, she was fired from her post as chief of Epic Records after just 20 months following an expletive-laden meltdown at the CMJ Music Conference, according to an exposé in The Hollywood Reporter. The story detailed a troubled tenure that included allegations she imposed her songwriting on artists and behaved erratically, once allegedly throwing a CD across the room during a meeting. (The producers’ lawsuit contends that Wilson is retaliating in part over her unhappiness with the film’s music credits.)
Before her feud with “The Deb” producers, Wilson sparked headlines earlier this year when she accused Sacha Baron Cohen of sexually harassing her and pressuring her to do nudity on the set of “The Brothers Grimsby.” The claims were made in her memoir “Rebel Rising.” Cohen successfully got the passages removed from editions of the book published in the U.K. and Australia, though it remains in the U.S. version as well other international territories.
“The Deb” centers on a pair of teenage girls preparing to attend a debutante ball in the Australian Outback. The actress at the center of the alleged sexual harassment allegations has remained silent, while the back-and-forth between Wilson and the producers has played out in a public forum.
Meanwhile, the fate of the film, which does not yet have a distributor, hangs in the balance. “The Deb” was selected as the closing night film at the Toronto Film Festival, where it will be shopped by WME at the accompanying market. Sources familiar with the battle between Wilson and the producers say AI Film initially refused to give approval to TIFF to screen “The Deb” and only reversed course after she posted on social media about the standoff over the film making its world premiere at the festival.
