A California judge has rejected a bid to sanction Pitch Perfect star Rebel Wilson following accusations she lied under oath and manipulated key evidence in her bitter legal battle over her directorial debut, The Deb.
The movie’s producers Amanda Ghost,
her husband, Gregor Cameron, and Vince Holden, sought sanctions against Wilson, accusing her of “fraud on the court.” The request was the latest salvo in the messy war where Ghost is suing Wilson for defamation, and Wilson is pursuing counterclaims against the producers for alleged bullying, intimidation, and breach of contract.
The producers claim that Wilson falsely testified about leaking a demand letter from her lawyer, Bryan Freedman, to a news reporter and falsely denied involvement in two anonymous websites that portrayed Ghost as a sex trafficker. In their motion, the producers said newly obtained evidence contradicted Wilson’s denials and linked her to the letter leak and websites.
“Can you send this immediately to [the reporter] Matt,” Wilson wrote to her publicist, Marcy Engelman, on July 12, 2024, according to a message that was cited in the sanctions motion after Engelman produced it in discovery. The message included an attachment of Freedman’s letter, the producers’ lawyers said.
In their motion prepared by lawyers Camille Vasquez and Samuel Moniz, the producers also accused Wilson of lying under oath when she “categorically and unequivocally” denied any role in creating two websites, amandaghost.com and amandaghostsucks.com. The lawyers said they obtained “overwhelming evidence” linking Wilson to the sites, including documents and voice notes in which her crisis PR team discussed Wilson wanting “one of those sites,” and that Ghost should be portrayed as “an absolute madam” along the lines of Heidi Fleiss and Ghislaine Maxwell.
Other messages showed the PR firm quoting Wilson $110,000 for an “untraceable site” with “ghost hosting,” according to the motion. Wilson appeared to misunderstand the price, responding as though it were $110, the producers said. Their lawyers also alleged that Wilson supplied the initial draft of the websites in a Word document with metadata identifying her company, Camp Sugar, as the author.
“What we’ve been dealing with is conduct that we find extremely unusual and extremely egregious,” Moniz said at a Thursday morning hearing before the judge issued his ruling a few hours later. “I don’t know how you can have fair litigation with a party who conducts herself in that manner. It’s like playing chess with somebody who starts moving pieces as soon as she thinks you’re not looking at the board.”
The producers sought sanctions ranging from dismissal of Wilson’s claims, known as terminating sanctions, to $474,026 in financial penalties. They said if the claims survived, the court should instruct a future jury that Wilson had repeatedly lied under oath and deliberately destroyed evidence, including an Instagram video.
Wilson’s lawyer, Allyson K. Thompson, opposed the motion, arguing that Wilson had not yet completed her deposition and should have an opportunity to present evidence defending her accounts.
“We are not even in the middle of discovery,” Thompson told the judge. “Ms. Wilson deserves a jury trial. She deserves to have credibility assessed by a jury. … This motion was an attempt to malign my client for the press.”
Judge Thomas Long said from the bench that terminating sanctions required a high threshold of proof and that it would be “very difficult, right out of the box” to impose such a severe penalty. In his subsequent written ruling, Long denied the sanctions requests but left open the possibility that the producers could pursue other remedies as the case proceeds.
The producers “are free to seek appropriate instructions to the jury, including but not limited to the willful suppression of evidence instructions,” Long wrote. He added they could also seek permission to amend their complaint to add a claim for destruction or manipulation of evidence.
Lawyers for both sides did not immediately respond to requests for comment from Rolling Stone.
The very public legal battle traces back to July 2024, when Wilson went on Instagram and accused Ghost of “inappropriate behavior” towards Charlotte MacInnes, the lead actress of The Deb. Wilson also claimed funds were embezzled from the film’s budget and that Ghost was trying to bury her directorial debut.
Ghost denied the accusations and sued Wilson for defamation, claiming the actress-director was lashing out because she didn’t get a writing credit on The Deb. Three months later, Wilson filed her cross-complaint alleging the film’s production was marred by “a troubling pattern of egregious and illicit behaviors,” including theft and bullying.
In her cross-complaint, Wilson claimed that Ghost forced MacInnes to live with her during production and then pressured her to take a shower and bath together. In a sworn declaration, MacInnes disputed that account, describing the incident as a nonsexual response to a medical episode after the two women went swimming.
“Ms. Ghost and I went swimming in the ocean near the apartment, and the cold water caused Ms. Ghost to have a medical reaction. I helped Ms. Ghost by bringing her back to the apartment and running a warm shower and bath to warm her back up. We both remained in our bathing suits, since we had been swimming in the ocean,” she wrote, adding that a third woman was present and brought them a warm drink. “There was nothing sexual or inappropriate about the incident whatsoever. It was a medical situation.”
In July, Wilson faced a different trial in Australia and was found not liable for defaming MacInnes. According to The Guardian, MacInnes denied ever telling Wilson that the incident with Ghost made her uncomfortable.
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