Rebel with a Cause: The Assessment of Serious Harm in MacInnes v Wilson

Background

In 2025, actress and musician Charlotte MacInnes commenced defamation proceedings against Rebel Wilson in connection with a series of social media posts made by Ms Wilson about conduct which allegedly occurred during the filming of the film The Deb in 2023. Ms Wilson’s posts refer to a complaint she said Ms MacInnes made to Ms Wilson about one of the producers of The Deb, Ms Amanda Ghost, which Ms MacInnes was said to have later “walked back”.

Subsequent posts were made from The Deb’s Instagram account which show Ms MacInnes singing on a yacht, with the captions referring to a record deal Ms MacInnes obtained and extra recording sessions Ms MacInnes had with Ms Ghost during the filming of The Deb. Finally, Ms Wilson made a series of posts addressing the Australian proceedings and why she reported Ms MacInnes’ complaint.

Ms MacInnes claimed that each of the posts referred to above were defamatory of her.

Findings

Justice Raper delivered her judgment in the proceedings on 22 July 2026 and made the following findings:

• the applicable law is that of New South Wales;
• only one of the imputations complained of was made out;
• the imputation that was made out was not defamatory;
• in any event, Ms MacInnes failed to establish that the matter had caused, or was likely to cause, her serious harm;
• in any event, the imputation was substantially true; and
• Ms MacInnes’ claim for breach of confidence failed.

Accordingly, Justice Raper ordered that the application be dismissed.

Why So Serious?

While Justice Raper ultimately held that the only imputation that was made out was not defamatory, her Honour nevertheless considered the question of serious harm. On this point, it is important that her Honour found that the applicable law was that of New South Wales. Had her Honour found that the applicable law was that of Western Australia (as Ms MacInnes had claimed), there would have been no need to consider the serious harm element, as the serious harm amendments in the Uniform Defamation Law have not yet been enacted in Western Australia.

In any event, her Honour considered the authorities on serious harm and remarked that serious harm is concerned with harm to reputation – it is not concerned with injury to feelings (mental anguish, anxiety, personal hurt, etc). The appropriate course, as was originally set out in Greenwich v Latham [2026] FCAFC 82, is for the Court to make an evaluative assessment, recognising that “a person’s reputation exists in the minds of others, and it may not be homogenous”. Accordingly, the impact of a defamatory matter may result in serious harm without the impact being uniform.

Ms MacInnes’ claim for serious harm consisted of, among other things:

• the inherently serious/defamatory nature of the posts;
• the likelihood that the matter would harm Ms MacInnes’ reputation for integrity and honesty;
• the wide dissemination of the relevant post;
• Ms Wilson’s wide social media following; and
• Ms Wilson’s reputation as a leading Australian film star.

While Justice Raper acknowledged that the capacity of a matter to cause serious harm increases proportionally with the gravity of the defamation in the matter, her Honour held that the matter in this case was not sufficiently defamatory to lead to a finding of serious harm.

With regards to the extent of publication, it was relevant that the post was an Instagram story, and was therefore only up for 24 hours and only retrievable for 48 hours – extensive reference is made throughout the decision to the ‘fleeting’ nature of social media posts and that notional readers typically scroll through social media posts quickly with less regard to their content. Despite the fact that the post had been republished by third party sources, the mere fact that the matters had been republished was not sufficient, in itself, to support a finding of serious harm – “the extent of publication is relevant, although not necessarily decisive”.

Similarly, while Justice Raper accepted that Ms Wilson is a leading Australian actor, this did not, in itself, establish the serious harm element. In particular, her Honour referred to comments on social media which expressed scepticism about, or were otherwise negative towards, Ms Wilson and her posts. These comments were telling, in that they demonstrated that Ms Wilson’s reputation was not influencing the public’s opinion about Ms MacInnes. Notably, Ms Wilson remained at the centre of the comments – there was little to no consideration of Ms MacInnes at all.

Finally, Raper J held that none of the evidence before the Court established that Ms MacInnes suffered any actual harm as a result of the post. For all of those reasons, her Honour concluded that the publication had not, and was not likely to, cause serious harm to Ms McInnes’ reputation.

Conclusion and Takeaways

Justice Raper’s analysis in these proceedings demonstrates that the Court will undertake a holistic assessment of whether a publication is likely to cause serious harm. Importantly, there is not one definitive test to determine whether a publication causes serious harm. The assessment must be determined on a case-by-case basis and will largely turn on the particular facts of the case.

At a broader level, this case serves as a useful example of how social media posts will be viewed in the eyes of the Court in the context of defamation proceedings. For example, the fact that Ms Wilson’s posts were only available for a limited period of time was relevant in determining whether they were likely to cause serious harm. Similarly, the fact that notional readers would have scrolled quickly through the posts (and therefore would not have paid close attention to the content) weighed against Ms MacInnes in establishing serious harm.

The full decision can be read here.

For more information or for advice on defamation- or media law-related issues, contact a member of Addisons’ Media & Entertainment team.