Old School. Biblically Independent.
By Dustin Rowles | Celebrity | April 22, 2026
There’s a lot going on here, but I’m going to try to boil it down to the essentials: In 2023, Rebel Wilson directed a feel-good Australian musical called The Deb. Filming reportedly went smoothly. Everyone loved each other at the cast wrap party, and then about nine months after filming wrapped, things got ugly when Rebel Wilson was denied a full screenwriting credit (that went to Hannah Reilly, who wrote the original stage musical).
After being denied a writing credit, the release of the film stalled, and Rebel Wilson turned against the film’s producers, accusing them of embezzlement and of inappropriate behavior with the film’s lead actress, Charlotte MacInnes (pictured above, far left, at a celebration of the film’s launch). That behavior stems from an incident during production in which Wilson alleged that one of the producers, singer/songwriter Amanda Ghost, made MacInnes bathe and shower with her after Ghost had a medical reaction to cold water while filming at a beach.
It’s worth noting here that Wilson sat on that allegation for nine months — until the dispute over screenwriting credit — and that MacInnes herself denies there was any inappropriate behavior. She says she ran a warm bath for Ghost and that both women wore their bathing suits. Wilson, however, claims that MacInnes only sided with Ghost and the producers because they gave her a record deal. When the film’s premiere was subsequently threatened, Rebel Wilson went scorched earth, calling the producers “f***wits.”
Ghost and the producers sued Rebel Wilson, claiming she fabricated these allegations after being denied screenwriting credit and blasted them to her 11 million Instagram followers. They called Wilson a bully.
At this point, maybe it’s hard to say who was in the wrong: Maybe the producer did act inappropriately with MacInnes and tried to cover it up with a record deal. Maybe Wilson was acting like a bully because she didn’t get the credit she wanted.
But this is where it arguably tilts against Wilson: MacInnes filed her own defamation suit against Wilson, claiming she fabricated the allegations of sexually inappropriate conduct. That case is currently in trial in Australian federal court. Wilson also lost a separate bid to have the producers’ defamation suit thrown out under anti-SLAPP laws, with a California judge ruling that her allegations were made in the context of a private business dispute, not a matter of public interest. And then, in May of last year, Wilson attacked MacInnes — who was performing a song from the film on a yacht during Cannes — on Instagram, claiming, “Charlotte MacInnes in a culturally inappropriate Indian outfit on Len Blavatnik’s luxury yacht in Cannes — ironically singing a song from a movie that will never get released because of her lies.”
It’s important to note here that, according to the boutique that supplied the outfit, there was nothing culturally inappropriate about “an original 1970s handmade American ensemble.” And it’s also bizarre that Wilson would publicly attack the same woman she had claimed was a victim of inappropriate conduct.
Moreover, according to a voicemail from a PR agency worker advising Wilson on how to go after MacInnes: “We can’t just do it like, ‘oh, she’s a bitch, she sucks’ — it’s gotta be really, really heavy and connected to something that heavy.” This suggests that the attack on MacInnes was deliberately engineered to cause maximum reputational damage. It wasn’t whistleblowing. It was a PR strategy.
MacInnes’s defamation case just wrapped up the first day of a nine-day trial. What it looks like now — whether you believe the bathtub incident was inappropriate or not — is that Rebel Wilson only decided to weaponize it after she was denied a screenwriting credit, and then went scorched earth on both the producers and the lead actress.
It may or may not be relevant context, but it’s also worth noting that Rebel Wilson called Sacha Baron Cohen an “asshole” on the set of The Brothers Grimsby in her 2024 memoir, but pulled those passages after Cohen threatened legal action. It may also be worth noting, however, that Isla Fisher announced her divorce to Sacha Baron Cohen soon after those allegations surfaced.
