Actress Rebel Wilson has been awarded A$4.5m (\u00a32.7m; $3.6m) in Australia’s largest payout for a defamation case.<\/p>\n
Ms Wilson successfully argued that a series of magazine articles had wrongly portrayed her as a serial liar.<\/p>\n
In June a jury unanimously sided<\/a>\u00a0with Ms Wilson, who had claimed the articles stifled her career in Hollywood. She has said she will give the money away.<\/p>\n Bauer Media has always denied the articles were defamatory. A lawyer said it would consider the judgement.<\/p>\n Ms Wilson sought A$7m during the trial but had offered to settle for A$200,000 before it went to court.<\/p>\n Justice John Dixon told the Supreme Court of Victoria that the defamation case was “unprecedented in this country” because of its international reach.<\/p>\n “Substantial vindication can only be achieved by an award of damages that underscores that Ms Wilson’s reputation as an actress of integrity was wrongly damaged in a manner that affected her marketability in a huge worldwide marketplace,” he said on Wednesday.<\/p>\n The Bridesmaids and Pitch Perfect actress was not in court on Wednesday, but in June she pledged to give any damages to “charity, scholarships or [investment] into the Aussie film industry to provide jobs”.<\/p>\n “I had to stand up to a bully, a huge media organisation, Bauer Media, who maliciously took me down in 2015 with a series of grubby and completely false articles,” she said at the time.<\/p>\n Ms Wilson sat in court for every day of the three-week trial and spent six days in the witness box herself.<\/p>\n She claimed that eight articles published by Bauer magazines in 2015 had portrayed her as a serial liar, and that this resulted in her being sacked from two feature films.<\/p>\n A six-woman jury rejected Bauer Media’s arguments that the articles were substantially true, trivial, and did not affect Ms Wilson’s acting career. A 12-person jury is not required for civil cases in Victoria.<\/p>\n Ms Wilson said the verdict had exposed the “disgusting and disgraceful” conduct of some tabloid media and she looked forward to rebuilding her career.<\/p>\n Source: bbc.co.uk<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"