Rebel Wilson caught in major PR scandal with big ties to Lively-Baldoni legal war
Los Angeles, California - New revelations are shaking Hollywood: Rebel Wilson is at the center of a major PR scandal with ties to another high-profile case in the celebrity world.
As reported by The Hollywood Reporter, the Pitch Perfect star's crisis team is said to have planned a targeted smear campaign against producer Amanda Ghost, who worked on Wilson's directorial debut, The Deb.
In a released audio recording obtained by THR, digital consultant Jed Wallace instructs PR agent Melissa Nathan to claim, without evidence, that Ghost is a "madam" who procures young women for powerful men.
Wallace says in the snippet, "We can't just do, like, oh, she's a b***h, she sucks. It's, like, it's got to be really, really heavy and connected to something that heavy."
Lawyer Bryan Freedman, who was Wilson's legal advisor at the time, is also mentioned in the conversation.
Freedman, Wallace, and Nathan's names have all been splashed in the headlines as of late amid the legal dispute over the movie It Ends With Us, starring Justin Baldoni and Blake Lively.
Lively accused her co-star of sexual harassment as well as conducting a retaliatory smear campaign against her.
The Gossip Girl actor named Wallace and Nathan in her lawsuit, alleging that they helped facilitate the campaign, while Freedman is representing Baldoni in the case.
Explosive websites are at the center of Wilson's case
Per court documents, in Wilson's case, the focus is also on websites that were allegedly created with the intention of sharing content that would damage Ghost's reputation.
One site, which has since been deleted, even appeared as though it was from a supposed "whistleblower" and spread the most serious accusations.
The documents further reveal that Wilson's production company, Camp Sugar, was reportedly involved in the creation of such sites.
A former PR employee stated under oath that she had merely made "cosmetic changes" to the content and based it on specifications from Wallace and Nathan.
Messages from Nathan even allegedly said that "Rebel wants one of those sites" and gave explicit permission for the content to be "really, really harsh."
Ghost's lawyer says Wilson was involved in the smear campaign
Wallace is also said to have specifically suggested linking Ghost to influential business people in order to make the allegations appear even more serious.
The aim was to achieve the most drastic impact on her reputation possible.
Wilson firmly rejects any involvement, and her lawyers claim that she had no direct contact with the PR people involved.
However, Ghost's lawyer Camille Vasquez, who famously represented Johnny Depp in his defamation trial against Amber Heard, disagrees.
"Rebel Wilson has repeatedly denied any involvement in the creation of the smear websites – not just on television but in her sworn legal testimony," Vasquez said in a statement.
"We, however, had long suspected that she not only contributed to the malicious sites but that she was the driving force behind them."
Cover photo: Collage: IMAGO/ZUMA Wire & Screenshot/Instagram/@thedebfilm

