Jane Menelaus says her husband has ‘retreated from the world’ since allegations about inappropriate behaviour

This article is more than 1 year old

This article is more than 1 year old

Geoffrey Rush cried when he saw the Sydney Daily Telegraph’s “King Leer” front-page headline, feared that his children “didn’t love him as much” and no longer wishes to act.

On Wednesday Rush’s wife, the actress Jane Menelaus, gave evidence as part of the actor’s defamation claim against the newspaper.

The actor is suing the Telegraph over a series of articles published at the end of November and beginning of December in 2017 alleging he behaved inappropriately during the production.

Geoffrey Rush close to tears as he gives evidence in 'King Leer' defamation trial Read more

“He cried. He said, ‘they’ve just destroyed everything I’ve tried to do’ [then] he put his arm around me and wept,” Menelaus said.

Menelaus became emotional, repeatedly rubbing her temples and forehead as she described the impact of the articles on her husband.

“I saw a man so altered and changed, his eyes sunk into his head, he retreated very much from, well, from the world,” she said.

“It’s very painful to relive something we’ve actually [been] trying terribly hard to forget for 11 months. We’ve gone round and round in circles asking why someone would hate him so much.

“He doesn’t wish to act again.”

Menelaus told the court Rush had felt responsible for his children’s mental health, describing them as “angry and confused”.

“He felt when the children withdrew because they often didn’t know how to speak to their father about these gross issues, that they were believing these articles themselves and that they didn’t love him as much.

“[He said] I think they’re pulling away from me.”

Wednesday’s hearing ended with Rush’s barrister, Sue Chrysanthou, using a definition for an emoji sent by Rush to actor Eryn-Jean Norvill as evidence.

On Tuesday Rush was asked under cross-examination by the Telegraph’s barrister, Tom Blackburn, SC, about a June 2016 text message he sent the actor in which he said he was “thinking of you (as I do more than is socially appropriate)”.

The message ended with an emoji of a face with a tongue hanging out, and Blackburn has asked whether it was “panting”.

Rush replied: “No, that’s the looniest emoji I could find”.

Chrysanthou tendered an extract from the website emojipedia.com, which she described as “a reputable website”, which defined the emoji in question as an “attempt to be wacky zany or otherwise joking”.

“Emojipedia is a reputable website telling us how to interpret these faces because obviously some [people] need that,” she said.

Earlier on Wednesday, after two days in the witness stand, Rush had been forced to deny making inappropriate comments and gestures to a second member of the 2015 production of King Lear, but said he might have told a younger co-star she looked “yummy”.

The Telegraph is arguing a truth defence on the basis of evidence given by Rush’s co-star Eryn-Jean Norvill, who played Cordelia in the play.

On the third day of his trial the Telegraph’s barrister, Tom Blackburn SC, pushed Rush on his behaviour towards female cast members, alleging Rush had made “groping” and “hour-glass” gestures towards a fellow actor, Eryn-Jean Norvill, who played Lear’s daughter Cordelia.

Blackburn said that during previews of the play Rush had traced his fingers over the side of Norvill’s right breast during one scene.

On another occasion, while waiting to go on stage, he said Rush reached his hand underneath the back of Norvill’s shirt and traced his fingers across the waistline of her jeans.

A third time, Blackburn said, Rush had “gently stroked his fingers over her lower back on and just above the line of her jeans” back and forwards, and that Norvill had quietly said “please stop that”.

Rush said the statements were “all untrue” and “did not happen”.

On Wednesday Blackburn put to Rush that alongside the gestures, he had often told Norvill she looked “yummy” and “scrumptious”.

Rush said he couldn’t recall calling her “scrumptious” but “might have” used the word yummy.

“Yummy has a spirit to it because we are about to go into our scenes together [and they were] going to be dramatic and harrowing,” he said.

Geoffrey Rush tells defamation trial newspaper made him look like a 'criminal' Read more

Blackburn then put to Rush that he “frequently and pretty much on daily basis were doing things like sticking your tongue out licking your lips in an exaggerated way in front of Ms Norvill”, at the same time as calling her “yummy” or “scrumptious”.

“No, I didn’t,” Rush replied.

Blackburn also asserted Rush made similar gestures towards the Sydney Theatre Company stage hand Georgia Gilbert.

“The gestures I’ve asked you questions about and I’ve suggested you were doing, you also made those gestures during the rehearsal period to Georgia Gilbert,” Blackburn said.

“No, I didn’t,” Rush replied.

Rush denied Blackburn’s proposition that other cast members had told him “words to the effect ‘Oh Geoffrey stop that’ or ‘Stop it Geoffrey’”.

The court has previously heard that Norvill would on occasion refer to Rush as “dad” in what Rush described as the manner of a “whiny Australian kid”. He described it as as a kind of “admonishment” for “embarrassing” behaviour such as “daggy dad dancing”.

But on Wednesday Blackburn contended that she had used the term as an admonishment for the “words and gestures”.

“No,” Rush said.

“It was admonishing in a playful way, pretending to be a teenage daughter.”

Rush’s claim states that the Telegraph articles defamed him by portraying him as a “pervert” and “sexual predator” who engaged in “scandalously inappropriate behaviour in the theatre”.

Blackburn asked Rush whether all of the behaviours combined would constitute behaviours of that kind.

Rush said it “could be read that way” and would be “unseemly”.

The trial continues.

• This article was amended on 24 October 2018 to correct a misspelling of Eryn-Jean Norvill’s first name.