Six-person jury deliberates for two days before deciding actor was defamed by Woman’s Day and Australian Woman’s Weekly

This article is more than 3 years old

This article is more than 3 years old

The actor Rebel Wilson has won her high-profile court battle against the publisher of Woman’s Day and Australian Women’s Weekly, Bauer Media.

A six-person jury deliberated for two days over their verdict in which they were asked to consider 40 questions and eight potentially defamatory magazine articles before handing down their decision at the supreme court of Victoria on Thursday.

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The 37-year-old Pitch Perfect star was defamed by the publisher when it accused her of lying about her real name age and childhood. The amount of damages will to be decided by Justice John Dixon.

Outside the court in Melbourne on Thursday, Wilson said she felt the “stain” had been removed from her reputation after Bauer had “so maliciously” taken her down.

“The reason I’m here is not for damages, it’s to clear my name. And the fact the jury has done that unanimously and answered every single of the 40 questions in my favour I think proves what I’ve been saying all along,” Wilson said.

“I was hoping the jury would do the right thing and send a message to these tabloids and they’ve done that so for me, it’s over in my mind.”

Wilson said she felt like she’d stood up to a “bully” who had damaged her career.

“Unfortunately, this was the only way that I could stand up to this huge media organisation was by taking them to court publicly,” she said.

“I’m a person that’s really confident in my own skin and really felt like it was the right thing to do to take this company on and prove how disgusting and disgraceful their chequebook journalism is.”

Wilson said she planned to go back to Hollywood and rebuild her career.

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“I’m hoping to film a movie in New York with fellow Aussie Liam Hemsworth, who I get to pash in the movie,” she joked.

“So when I’ve been feeling really down about the stress of this court case, I’ve just been thinking about pashing him.”

Bauer Media released a statement saying it would “consider its options” after the verdict.

Wilson told the court during the trial that she “had to beg” to be let back inside studio doors in Hollywood to impress producers after a series of defamatory articles were published in 2015. “Month after month, doors that used to be open were shut,” she said.

The Bridesmaids star said she had been dumped from the role of Jack Black’s panda love interest in Kung Fu Panda 3 after a series of “malicious” magazine articles. Wilson said the head of DreamWorks had fired her in person because she had become “too divisive” for a family movie.

She said she had burst into tears and been “shocked and blindsided” by losing her role in the movie, which she so “desperately” wanted.

She said she had then been fired from another DreamWorks animated film, Trolls, and that she had not been offered any more movie roles after the articles were published in May 2015.

Wilson told the court she had never lied and that she knew the identity of an “obsessed and weirdly jealous” former schoolmate who had given dubious information to journalists.

The actor told the court during the trial that she did not want the same thing to happen to other Australians trying to make it in Hollywood.

“You’re not popular for long in Hollywood, you have a few years until you go out of fashion,” she said. “They took those two years away from me doing what I love, which is entertaining people and making people laugh.

“Not everyone has the strength to stand up for themselves, but I do.”

Wilson, who has a law degree from the University of New South Wales, said she had the money and education to take on the “harrowing” and “very expensive” fight.