Reese Witherspoon’s bills prove costly for organisers of Brisbane speaking gig which collapsed into liquidation

REESE Witherspoon’s expensive styling, appearance fee and busy schedule proved costly for organisers of a Brisbane speaking gig, which has collapsed into liquidation.

Reese Witherspoon in a scene from her hit movie Legally Blonde 2.

LEGALLY Blonde star Reese Witherspoon’s expensive styling, appearance fee and busy schedule proved costly for organisers of a speaking gig which collapsed into liquidation last month.

The actor was scheduled to appear in Brisbane this month as the headline speaker for Simpatico Connection’s $3000-a-head conference to “inspire women”.

But only two weeks after a cheeky Instagram post announcing Witherspoon’s visit, with the star featured with photoshopped koalas, the event was cancelled and the company is now being wound up with debts of about $2.24 million.

A recent creditors meeting heard that only $191,844 worth of prepaid tickets were sold, falling shy of Witherspoon’s fee of $US1 million ($1.34 million) organised through her agents, Creative Artists Agency.

Stanley Morgan Solvency Accountants liquidator Brendan Nixon said Simpatico was also charged a fee of $US92,550 for Witherspoon’s “stylists, personnel, security”.

Reese Witherspoon’s Instagram shot with photoshopped koalas.

In a statement to creditors, Simpatico director Jacqueline Nagle said that the success of the event hinged on “educating the Australian public” why they should spend between $1997 and $2997 a ticket to see Witherspoon speak as many saw her as “an actress, the blonde lawyer toting a chihuahua”.

To help spread the word Witherspoon’s contract included two social media posts and a national media call in Australia in March.

But constant changes due to Witherspoon’s own commitments pushed the media call back and she knocked back media appearances which Ms Nagle said had a “severe” impact on ticket sales.

“Ticket sales ... were extraordinarily slow,” Ms Nagle said.

In June Witherspoon was finally scheduled to arrive in Australia for the publicity call, but her team requested payment before appearing before the media.

Faced with the possibility of losing her headline act, Ms Nagle said she instructed her team to “deliberately break the back end of the website so bookings could not be made” on June 12 “making it look like a website glitch”.

With an insurance policy in place she decided to cancel the event believing it would cover the company’s debts.

But Mr Nixon said the policy was conditional on the cause of cancellation and might not cover the event as a result of “contractual disputes, reduction in attendance and the financial failure of the venture”.

Mr Nixon said he would also consider whether the company traded while insolvent. Although he said preliminary reviews did not indicate any potential unfair preference payments a cash withdrawal of $154,097 on March 16 required investigation.

Ms Nagle did not respond to a request for comment.