Actor Rebel Wilson says her upcoming directorial debut may not premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) as intended because of “bad behaviour” from its producers.
In a post on Instagram last week, the Australian star revealed her film, The Deb, an Australian musical, was selected for the closing night of TIFF.
The 44-year-old said as a first-time female director she feels honoured to be chosen by the renowned film festival. However, she says her business partners are preventing the movie from premiering over “bad behaviour” stemming from Oct. 2023.
“Why are they stopping it from premiering at Toronto? Well, this dates back to October of last year, where I discovered bad behaviour by these business partners. And let me just, you know, I just tell it how it is, so I’m just going to tell you who they are,” Wilson shared in the video.
“They are so-called ‘producers’ of the film — I use that phrase very lightly. Their names are Amanda Ghost, and Gregory Cameron, and an executive producer who works with them called Vince Holden. So, these are the people involved,” she continued.
She goes on to say that she reported the bad behaviour, as they were serious issues, including inappropriate behaviour towards the lead actress of the film and embezzling funds from the film’s budget.
Since reporting the behaviour, Wilson reveals she has been met with “viciousness and retaliatory behaviour.” For instance, while filming on set, the producers allegedly made her job difficult.
“I still finished the movie. I made this great movie, The Deb. And then now, you know, almost at the finish line. They’re saying, you know, it can’t come out. They might not release it, they might bury it,” Wilson said.
“This is work of hundreds of people who have put their heart and soul into this. And this behaviour is absolutely vile and disgusting. And these people, Amanda Ghost, in particular, has a history of doing this kind of thing, mainly to music artists but also to people in the film business,” she continued.
Wilson adds that she will not be threatened and she will speak her truth and warn people about the producers in the industry who do not behave ethically.
“Yeah, so that’s my dilemma. If the movie doesn’t play at Toronto, it’s because of these absolute f**kwits,” she said at the end of the video.
Now Toronto has reached out to the film festival for comment but has yet to receive a response.
In response to Wilson’s remarks, the Pitch Perfect actress is being sued for defamation by all three of the producers she mentioned, in the Los Angeles County of the Superior Court of California.
Based on court documents, the trio are claiming Wilson had a lack of professionalism and wanted to advance her own self-interests. In addition, the documents say the actress wanted to be credited for work she did not do.
Over the weekend, Wilson responded to the lawsuit in an Instagram post.
“It’s not defamation if it’s the TRUTH (those ‘producers’ who I mentioned in my last post have just filed a defamation suit against me and sent to the press)! Let our cool movie play at Toronto and stop messing about with a rubbish defamation suit against me!” she wrote.
Unit assistant on The Deb, Grace Hyde, defended the actress in the comments.
“Myself and the rest of the crew are with you all the way. I’ve honestly never been on a production quite like ‘The Deb.’ We’ve all said what a special film it was to work on. Never once did I hear a bad comment from any of the cast or crew about their time working on it or with you,” she said.
“We all know what a legend and fighter you are, so anything we the crew can do to help get this beautiful movie shown to the world, we are with you 100%!” she added.
