The actor says legal action against her was ‘final straw’ after publisher painted her as serial liar in an ‘orchestrated, malicious take-down’

Rebel Wilson decided to sue the publisher of an Australian magazine after a journalist launched an alleged “shakedown” against her over a tweet, the actor has told a court.

The Australian star is suing Bauer Media, the publisher of Woman’s Day, for defamation, claiming a series of articles painted her as a serial liar and cost her movie roles.

Wilson alleges that the “orchestrated, malicious take-down” stole two years of her limited time in the Hollywood limelight and caused her “star meter” to drop.

On the fifth day of the trial at the Victorian supreme court in Melbourne on Friday, the Pitch Perfect star revealed it was actually a lawsuit against her that convinced her to sue Bauer.

Rebel Wilson tells court an 'obsessed' former schoolmate sold her out to Woman’s Day Read more

Australian journalist Elizabeth Wilson, who has worked for House & Garden magazine, took legal action against the actor when she was abused in a social media post.

Wilson called the journalist “total scum” in a tweet and posted a picture of her in February 2016, accusing her of harassing her elderly grandmother for a story.

But the actor had accused the wrong journalist. She said it was a simple mistake because there were two Elizabeth Wilsons who had worked for ACP Magazines, now known as Bauer Media. Wilson says she sent a letter to apologise but received a lawsuit in reply.

“It was a completely innocent mistake,” she told the court. “I’m extremely sorry. I feel horrible for what I have done. I asked if she would meet me face-to-face to apologise. But she doesn’t want a personal apology. She wants $250,000.

“I can only now describe that as a shakedown.”

Wilson said that in Hollywood a “shakedown” was when someone sought money from someone they think is “super-rich”.

She said the journalist’s lawsuit against her prompted her to sue the Woman’s Day publisher, who had caused her and her family deep distress.

“It was, in a sense, the final straw,” she said.

The court also heard that shortly after the Woman’s Day article came out calling her a liar, Rebel Wilson emailed two of her best friends from school and asked them to find out who had “sold the story”.

Wilson was being cross-examined by Bauer Media’s lawyer Georgina Schoff QC about how she had responded when the first article was published.

Schoff read from an email Wilson had sent to two close friends from her old boarding school in Sydney.

“Do you guys know who sold the story about me?” Wilson’s email read. “It’s pretty poor form whoever did it.”

Wilson said she had been “deeply hurt” by the “outright lies” in the articles and wanted to find out who had told them. “It was clear that it was a girl in our grade,” she told the court. “I think it is only natural to want to know who was the girl that did it.”

The Woman’s Day articles claimed the star had told “pork pies” about her age, which was 34 at the time rather than 29 as some believed.

But Wilson said she had never lied about her age, although she admitted she had not spoken up about it during her time in Hollywood.

“Ever since I moved to Hollywood, I just stopped disclosing my age,” she said. “Being an authentic person, I’m proud of how old I am. It’s just it was in my best interest, being a Hollywood actress, to not publicly disclose my age.”

Earlier in the trial, Wilson said the Woman’s Day articles, which were later picked up by American magazines, cost her movie roles and hurt her and her family deeply.

She says she was sacked from the role of Jack Black’s love interest in the film Kung Fu Panda 3, leaving her “shocked and blindsided”.

She said the directors had loved her performance but the head of DreamWorks sacked her because she had become “too divisive” for a family movie.

Wilson said she had desperately wanted the role of the ribbon-dancing panda Mei Mei, which was later re-recorded by Kate Hudson.

She said she was also dropped from another Dreamworks animated film Trolls and had to “beg” to be let back inside studio doors to share her ideas.