Rebel Wilson’s Smear Campaign Over ‘The Deb’ Detailed in Leaked Audio
Behind closed doorways, Rebel Wilson‘s disaster public relations staff mentioned plans to create nameless web sites that accused the producer of The Deb of intercourse trafficking as a part of an alleged smear marketing campaign requested by the actress.
In a recording obtained by The Hollywood Reporterdigital fixer Jed Wallace instructed high leisure publicist Melissa Nathan to claim with out proof that the producer, Amanda Ghost, is a “madame” whose work includes procuring younger ladies for rich and highly effective males. Listen:
“We can’t just do, like, oh, she’s a bitch, she sucks,” Wallace says in the recording. “It’s, like, it’s got to be really, really heavy and connected to something that heavy.”
At one level in the non-public dialog, Wallace references the involvement of Hollywood energy lawyer Bryan FreedmanWilson’s then-counsel, in the plan. The discovery of communications implicating Wallace, Nathan and Freedman could be traced again to the It Ends With Us authorized saga, in which Freedman performs a central position, and a breach of contract lawsuit from ex-Baldoni publicist Stephanie Jones in opposition to Baldoni and his manufacturing firm Wayfarer.
The recording reinforces the looks that Nathan’s The Agency Group — a high PR store in the leisure trade whose purchasers have included Drake and Johnny Depp, and has incessantly labored with Freedman — deployed web sites that includes character-assassinating claims about Ghost. The dialog was initially recorded in order to relay directions from Wallace to former TAG vp Katie Case, who was not on the decision. She was informed to assessment a doc detailing accusations the location finally alleged in opposition to the producer.
Camp Sugar, Wilson’s manufacturing firm, is known as as an creator of that doc, in keeping with court docket filings.
“Rebel Wilson has repeatedly denied any involvement in the creation of the smear websites — not just on television but in her sworn legal testimony,” mentioned Camille Vasquez, a lawyer for Ghost, in an announcement. “We, however, had long suspected that she not only contributed to the malicious sites but that she was the driving force behind them. The evidence we have submitted to the court in California supports that conclusion.”
Wilson, Freedman, Nathan and Wallace declined to remark. Freedman has beforehand mentioned that neither he nor Nathan and Wallace had been concerned in the websites.
According to court docket filings, in an August 2024 trade naming Freedman and Wallace, Nathan discusses plans with Case to implement a digital marketing campaign concentrating on Ghost, who was then engaged in an escalating authorized battle with Wilson over the actress’ directorial debut, The Deb. “So basically, Rebel wants one of those sites,” Nathan texts. “It could be actually actually harsh. And then hyperlink it to the [sic] “Jed’s voice thing.” Later, she messages Case, “Jed and Bryan asking me for copy lol kill me.”
That copy, allegedly drafted by Camp Sugar, was revised to adapt with Wallace’s directions, Case mentioned in a deposition. In the recording, the digital strategist tells Nathan to assert that Ghost gives billionaire Len Blavatnik, proprietor of Ghost’s manufacturing firm AI Film, with intercourse staff.
“So basically what we need to do is, we need to create a path where we expose Amanda Ghost,” Wallace says. “Amanda Ghost is like the new Heidi Fleiss. Like, she masquerades as — the reason why she sucks so bad at music is because she’s actually getting hookers for Blavatnik, right, and that’s what she does.” (Ghost is greatest often called a music government, together with her brief, tumultuous tenure atop Epic Records.)
He provides, “I think you, me, and Bryan and maybe Katie, since she’ll write this thing, what we have to do” is “connect Amanda Ghost with Blavatnik.” (The mogul declined to remark.)
The now-deleted website — titled Amanda Ghost is a Destroyer of Worlds — represents itself as being written by a whistleblower. It acknowledged, in half, “Failing in music she turned full pimp, reinventing herself ace a theatrical producer alongside her husband while really procuring young women for the pleasure of the extremely wealthy.” A comparability of the doc Camp Sugar allegedly despatched to TAG reveals equivalent language, together with a phrase that refers to Ghost because the “Indian Ghislaine Maxwell” and an allegation that she’s “notorious for holding artist’s [sic] “work from release.”
In a deposition, Case mentioned she made “cosmetic changes” to the copy allegedly drafted by Camp Sugar and “included the specific language that had been requested by Jed in the voice note and Melissa via text.” She wasn’t introduced with proof corroborating the claims and wasn’t conscious of anybody on the agency who investigated the accusations, in keeping with the court docket doc.
“I knew very little about her from cursory searches when we had first taken Rebel on,” Case mentioned. “There were articles about her being a bit of an insidious figure in the music industry, but I didn’t know much about what I could find available online.”
At one level, Wilson demanded her public relations staff to distribute adversarial protection of Ghost, chairwoman of Blavatnik’s AI Film, because the feud worsened, in keeping with a court docket submitting citing a message from the actress. “You were supposed to get the negative information out about Ghost and have failed to do that,” she wrote.
Case mentioned in her deposition that she wasn’t taken again by Wilson’s instruction, explaining that is “the way these things work” and that it “can be somewhat of a tit-for-tat situation” relying on the consumer. She added that she by no means spoke with the actress and that she solely obtained instructions from Wallace on the web site.
The case has steadily been escalating since The Deb producers Ghost, Gregor Cameron and Vince Holden in 2024 sued Wilson for defamation after she accused them of sexual harassment and embezzlement. A countersuit from Wilson, a number of public statements from the lead actress of the film denying claims that she was harassed and a lawsuit from the movie’s manufacturing firm alleging that the Pitch Perfect star blocked a distribution deal adopted. An inflection level got here final yr when discovery in the It Ends With Us authorized battle unearthed communications laying the groundwork for a brand new defamation declare in opposition to Wilson over the alleged smear websites.
TAG has been an ongoing enterprise companion of Freedman and his legislation agency. In the previous decade, he is develop into one of many leisure trade’s most seen litigators, an everyday presence in the media as a self-styled “pit bull” advocate for purchasers starting from Kevin Spacey and Chris Cuomo to Diplo and Megyn Kelly — herself a former lawyer who’s vouched for her counsel by explaining, “Once he’s on board for you, he’ll kill for you.” Freedman informed THR in 2024, “If you fuck with my client, you get what you get.”
In February, THR revealed how the slanderous websites on the heart of the Ghost-Wilson dispute look like a part of a broader on-line smear machine which connects to many different latest headline-making sagas. They vary from the intercourse trafficking case involving the socially outstanding Alexander brothers who had been convicted this month in Manhattan to the authorized feud between Okay-pop leisure large Hybe and one among its former high executives.
Digital forensics filed final fall in court docket for Jones, one other alleged sufferer, first linked Wallace to the broader sample. Her attorneys contend it is obvious that Nathan and Wallace have run “a clandestine cottage industry of creating false smear websites and social media accounts targeting their adversaries and those of their clients,” doing so “of ten in connection with litigation.” They termed this a “playbook.”
Freedman has beforehand objected to Jones’ technical knowledge, terming it “speculation presented as fact.” He wasn’t recognized in Jones’ digital forensics as a perpetrator, nor named in her swimsuit as a defendant. Yet the topic of one other smear website, the actress-turned-activist Alexa Nikolas, sued Freedman in addition to Nathan for defamation on Feb. 5. She contended the legal professional “was an integral part of a team working to control [unfavorable] narratives.” (As a defendant in Nikolas’ motion, he is to this point remained silent on the matter.)
in THR‘s February investigation, Ghost’s lawyer Vasquez defined that any litigator’s involvement in commissioning such smear websites would represent “a profound abuse of power and a betrayal of the lawyer’s role in the justice system.” She added, “secretly engineering false or misleading narratives to intimidate, discredit or pressure an opponent crosses the line from zealous advocacy into misconduct. When a professionally orchestrated smear campaign is weaponized in litigation, it distorts the legal process itself by polluting the fact-finding mission, influencing witnesses and the public, and attempting to win through reputational harm rather than evidence and law.”
Until the It Ends With Us saga pointed a Klieg gentle at him, Wallace had been an under-the-radar Hollywood operatorwith a scant on-line footprint of his personal. The digital fixer, who lives exterior Austin, has been in comparison with the shadowy leisure trade problem-solver of Showtime’s Ray Donovan. Freedman, his longtime affiliate, has beforehand lauded his resourcefulness.
Lively’s authorized staff has described Wallace’s work in court docket as specializing in “high-profile and high-net-worth clients,” for whom he executes “confidential and ‘untraceable’ campaigns across social media platforms (including TikTok, Instagram, Reddit, and X) to shape public perception of his clients and their adversaries and various to perpetuate those perceptions by, among other things, creating social media accounts with inauthentic users.”
Wallace has denied this, and his personal legal professional as a substitute characterizes his enterprise as being a “crisis mitigation firm engaged by clients to help navigate real-life human crisis, threats, trauma and mental health concerns,” including, “It helps primarily families and individuals when they find themselves unjustly attacked, extorted, doxed, swatted, scammed or need help navigating through the most frightening situations.”
