Source : PERTHNOW NEWS
Actor Charlotte MacInnes thought her dreams were coming true thanks to the support of London-based media and entertainment executive Amanda Ghost.
In March 2023, the 27-year-old had landed a role in Rebel Wilson’s directorial debut The Deb, which Ms Ghost was co-producing, was in the running for a role in a London stage show Gatsby, and was seen as a potential recording artist by Ms Ghost.
Two months later, in May 2023, Ms MacInnes was going to Cannes and flying on a private jet to celebrate the launch of The Deb with the rest of the cast and crew on the superyacht of billionaire Sir Len Blavatnik, the ultimate financier of the film and whose company part-owned Warner Music Group.
She went to a gala where Boy George performed and played piano and sang for Mr Blavatnik back on the superyacht with just Ms Ghost and Ms Ghost’s husband Gregor Cameron, another of The Deb’s producers, also present during what she regarded as an “incredible opportunity”.
But, as the NSW Supreme Court has been told, by mid-September that year Ms Ghost was no longer speaking to her and Ms MacInnes was distressed that she’d done something to ruin the relationship.
The cooling off, the court was told, followed a hot bath shared by Ms MacInnes and Ms Ghost on September 5.
The circumstances surrounding that bath, how Ms MacInnes felt about it, what she said about it and to whom, and what was communicated back to Ms Ghost about what Ms MacInnes said have become one the central issues in a legal battle between Ms Wilson and the producers behind The Deb.
AI Film Production alleges the Pitch Perfect star sabotaged and blocked the release of the film. Ms Wilson is accused of undermining negotiations with distributors and threatening legal action against anyone showing the movie.
AI Film also alleges she breached various contractual obligations and directorial duties, engaged in misleading or deceptive conduct and repeatedly committed the tort of injurious falsehood.
Ms Wilson has countersued, seeking almost $600,000 in production fees and costs she says is owed to her company Camp Sugar, which her mother Sue Bownds co-owns.
According to Ms MacInnes, she ended up in a bath with Ms Ghost on September 5, 2023, when the producer suffered a medical incident after swimming in cold water at Bondi. They were both in swimwear.
Ms MacInnes, appearing via video link from London, told the court that she “never felt uncomfortable” about the bath and she never told Ms Wilson in the days afterwards that she had felt that way.
Ms Ghost has previously told the court that over two days on Hamilton Island, Ms Wilson had repeatedly told her Ms MacInnes had lied about her and was a “troublemaker”.
When Ms Ghost returned from Hamilton Island, she ignored Ms MacInnes and stopped speaking to her.
“I was very concerned and very sad,” she told the court. “I was very concerned that I had done something to offend Ms Ghost but I didn’t know what.”
The court was told that through emails and discussions, Ms MacInnes conveyed to Ms Ghost that she never felt uncomfortable and that her career continued to benefit from Ms Ghost being a “wonderful mentor”.
Ms Wilson in July 2024 posted to Instagram that the producers were preventing The Deb premiering at the Toronto International Film Festival because she had uncovered “bad behaviour … inappropriate behaviour towards the lead actress in the film”.
Under cross-examination by Ms Wilson’s barrister Dauid Sibtain, SC, Ms MacInnes denied that when she made a public statement that she had not been the victim of inappropriate behaviour it was to portray “Ms Wilson as a liar when it was you had lied”.
The hearing before Justice Elisabeth Peden continues.
