Pitch Perfect star Rebel Wilson has been awarded 4.5m Australian dollars (R47 million) after winning a defamation case against Australian magazine outlet, Bauer Media. However, she won’t be keeping any of the money for herself.
The comedy actress, who described the case as a “long and hard court battle”, successfully argued that the publisher of Woman’s Day and the Australian Women’s Weekly had wrongly portrayed her a serial liar. The reports allegedly caused her to miss out on a number of movie roles in Hollywood.
In June, a six person jury favoured her claim and on Wednesday, a supreme court in Melbourne awarded her R47 million – the largest defamation payout in Australian history. Rebel has since announced that she will be donating all of the money to charity.
“Today was the end of a long and hard court battle against Bauer Media who viciously tried to take me down with a series of false articles,” she said in a series of Tweets.
“The judge accepted without qualification that I had an extremely high reputation and that the damage inflicted on me was substantial. He said the nature of the aggravated defamation and the unprecedented extent of dissemination makes vindication of particular importance. The judge said he knew that the info from anonymous paid source was false… and that Bauer Media traded recklessly on my reputation in order to boost its own profits.
“You’re not popular for long in Hollywood, you have a few years until you go out of fashion,” she added. “They took those two years away from me doing what I love, which is entertaining people and making people laugh.”
Rebel explained that she was “extremely grateful” for the large sum but that the case “wasn’t about the money.”
She said: “I’m looking forward to helping out some great Australian charities and supporting the Oz film industry with the damages I’ve received.”
At the Supreme Court, Justice John Dixon concluded that the defamation case was “unprecedented in this country” because of its international reach.
“Substantial vindication can only be achieved by an award of damages that underscores that Ms Wilson’s reputation as an actress of integrity was wrongly damaged in a manner that affected her marketability in a huge worldwide marketplace,” he said on Wednesday.
Congratulations, Rebel!
