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Charlotte MacInnes has appealed her defeat in a defamation case against Rebel Wilson, challenging the findings that Wilson’s Instagram posts were not defamatory and did not cause serious harm to her reputation.
MacInnes
filed her notice of appeal on Thursday, one day after Justice Elizabeth Raper dismissed her defamation and breach-of-confidence claims in the Federal Court of Australia in Sydney.
According to reports in The Australian and Sydney’s Daily Telegraph, which cite MacInnes’ notice of appeal, she is asking the Full Court of the Federal Court to set aside Raper’s ruling and enter judgment in her favor.
As an alternative, she is seeking a new trial or a determination of the remaining issues by a different judge. MacInnes is also seeking to overturn the order requiring her to pay Wilson’s legal costs.
The appeal argues that Raper made errors in assessing the meanings conveyed by four sets of Instagram posts published between September 2024 and July 2025.
MacInnes, the lead actor in Wilson’s feature directorial debut, “The Deb,” claimed the posts portrayed her as dishonest and suggested that she had withdrawn an account of feeling uncomfortable during an encounter with the film’s producer, Amanda Ghost, to secure professional opportunities.
Raper found that only one of the meanings alleged by MacInnes was conveyed, and only by Wilson’s Sept. 23, 2024, Instagram post. The judge found that the post suggested MacInnes had changed her account of feeling uncomfortable about what happened with Ghost in a bathroom.
The judge ruled that the meaning was not defamatory. She also found that MacInnes had not established that the post caused, or was likely to cause, serious harm to her reputation.
As an alternative finding, Raper concluded that Wilson had established that the meaning conveyed by the post was substantially true.
MacInnes’ appeal challenges each of those conclusions. Her lawyers argue that the judge wrongly assessed the effect of the posts, underestimated the seriousness of the meanings conveyed and erred in accepting Wilson’s substantial-truth defense.
The appeal also disputes Raper’s assessment of Wilson’s credibility. According to the reported appeal documents, MacInnes argues that the judge did not give sufficient weight to evidence that allegedly undermined Wilson’s reliability.
Those allegations are grounds advanced by MacInnes and have not been determined by the Full Court.
MacInnes is also reported to have raised procedural-fairness arguments, claiming that Raper made certain factual findings without giving her an adequate opportunity to address them during the trial.
The original dispute arose from events in September 2023, when MacInnes and Ghost went swimming at Sydney’s Bondi Beach before returning to an apartment where they were staying.
Ghost suffered a reaction to the cold water, and the two women later entered a bath together while wearing swimwear.
Wilson maintained that MacInnes told her the following day that the incident had made her uncomfortable and subsequently changed her account. MacInnes denied making such a complaint and said she had not felt uncomfortable.
Raper found on the balance of probabilities that MacInnes had felt uncomfortable, had said something about the incident to Wilson and later stepped back from that position.
The judge did not find that Ghost’s behavior was sexual or amounted to sexual harassment. Her decision stated that the court had not been asked to determine whether the incident had a sexualized dimension.
Raper dismissed MacInnes’ case on Wednesday and ordered her to pay Wilson’s costs. Wilson subsequently described the ruling as a “substantial win.”
The appeal does not itself set aside Raper’s judgment. Her orders remain in place unless they are stayed or overturned by the Full Court.
Variety has reached out to Wilson’s publicist for comment.
