Christie Whelan Browne reveals brutal toll of McLachlan trials

Just 10 days after Craig McLachlan dropped his defamation lawsuit, Christie Whelan Browne reveals the fallout of her decision to speak out.

In a Stellar exclusive, actor Christie Whelan Browne sits down for a searingly honest interview about the repercussions – both personal and professional – of her decision to speak out about her encounters with former co-star Craig McLachlan. Between death threats and online trolling from her detractors and the draining struggle of attempting to start a family while also facing a court battle initiated by the actor, she ran the gauntlet – yet refused to let it overwhelm her. As she says: “I’m not going to be someone who will be scared into silence.”

It has been more than four years since actor Christie Whelan Browne made a life-changing decision. Rather than stay quiet, she was going to speak up about the way she had been treated by the long-time golden boy of Australian acting, her former musical co-star Craig McLachlan.

The two had appeared together in a 2014 stage production of The Rocky Horror Show and as McLachlan prepared for a tour of the show in 2018, Whelan Browne decided to make public an incident that occurred between them – in part because she wanted to protect the other women who were about to work with him.

McLachlan, she claimed, went off-script during a scene when they were in a vertical bed, sexually assaulting her under the sheets.

The explosive allegation – buttressed by the claims of fellow Rocky Horror stars Erika Heynatz and Angela Scundi, as revealed in a joint investigation by the ABC and Fairfax Media (now Nine) – resulted in McLachlan filing a defamation suit against Whelan Browne and the media outlets.

The case came to an abrupt end last month when McLachlan made the shock decision to abandon it and agreed to pay legal costs, estimated to be about $2 million.

In an exclusive sit-down with Stellar that takes place just 10 days later, Whelan Browne is determined and defiant. She’s not staying quiet. She’s still speaking up.

As she says: “I’m not going to be someone who will be scared into silence.”

Christie Whelan Browne: “I’m not going to be someone who will be scared into silence.” Picture: Steven Chee.

Rugged up in head-to-toe Melburnian black, the TV and theatre star opens up for the first time about the death threats, anxiety and fear she endured after joining her colleagues in accusing the Gold Logie-winning actor of indecent assault, sexual harassment and bullying.

She tries not to cry, saying she doesn’t want to come across as “a weepy, broken mess”, but the tears flow anyway, as she chronicles the battle to expose her co-star’s alleged predatory behaviour so that other women won’t suffer a similar fate.

Following McLachlan’s decision to drop the case – shortly before 11 women, including Whelan Browne, were due to give evidence against him – the 39-year-old actor says she doesn’t feel victorious.

“I was so geared up for this fight that I’d been ready for [over the past] four-and-a-half years, and then it was just over,” she tells Stellar.

“Champagne and flowers were arriving at the front door and I was supposed to feel celebratory, and I just didn’t. Because I wish it had never happened in the first place for both parties. I wish no-one had to suffer through that.”

Ultimately, the case brought trolling, abuse and fears for her safety into Whelan Browne’s life at a time when she was fighting another very different battle: trying to fall pregnant with her husband, fellow actor Rohan Browne.

“I’ve never received death threats before this,” reveals Whelan Browne, who stars in the comedy show Shaun Micallef’s Mad As Hell and is known for her roles in Neighbours and the 2016 series The Wrong Girl.

“People say, ‘Just ignore it.’ But when someone has threatened to hold my head under water until I stop breathing… Those threats hit you as real as if someone said them to your face. For a time, I slept with a knife by my bed if my husband was away. We also moved to a place with better security.”

In 2020, the Melbourne Magistrates’ Court found McLachlan not guilty of assault and indecent assault, but Magistrate Belinda Wallington concluded that the “result may have been different” if current consent laws, rather than those that were in place at the time of the alleged offences, were applied.

She determined that the four complainants were “brave and honest witnesses” and that she was “unable to exclude the possibility that an egotistical, self-entitled sense of humour led the accused to genuinely think that CC [one of the women] was consenting to his actions”.

Whelan Browne hopes the case, which focused on the fine line between play and improper behaviour, will prompt others to reflect on power imbalances in the workplace and consider their own conduct.

Christie Whelan Browne: “[women] just want to be respected.” Picture: Steven Chee.

“I’m sure there are generational gaps and behaviour that has gone on for a long time, so it’s hard to see why it’s wrong,” she says.

“Women for a long time have smiled and put up with things they didn’t want to, and now they’re saying we don’t want to anymore. If that’s hard to grasp, give me a call and I’ll talk you through it.

“It isn’t simple. It isn’t black and white. But it’s something that needs to be talked about more, and needs more attention. The idea that women are out to catch you or hurt you or destroy you is incorrect. They just want to be respected.”

If the case has shone the spotlight on Australia’s workplace culture in the wake of the global #MeToo movement, it has also polarised our acting fraternity. Members such as veteran actor John Jarratt supported McLachlan, referring to his accuser in a text message as a “whinging [sic] bitch”.

Conversely, actor Lachy Hulme tweeted that although he had known McLachlan for more than 18 years and had never met Whelan Browne, he was standing with her.

While grateful for the support, Whelan Browne has an almost tangible vulnerability and still worries about not being believed. Her voice is strong and clear but the way she sits during her chat with Stellar – her legs crossed and her body curled into itself – hints at the ongoing trauma she endures.

She’s still receiving professional help and reveals that she’s “lost her sense of safety in the world”. Critically, even after McLachlan’s withdrawal of the defamation claim, she urges her detractors to consider what women put themselves through if they speak up.

“It’s easy to paint women as liars,” she says. “There’s a misconception that people [speak out] for the fame or money, but I can guarantee you it’s neither of those things.

“There’s a lot of humiliation and anxiety and sleepless nights. None of those are enticing reasons to do it. You should always come from the angle of, why would someone do this if it’s not the truth?”

Christie Whelan Browne: “Why would someone do this if it’s not the truth?” Picture: Steven Chee.

The criminal case saw Whelan Browne’s texts and Instagram posts scrutinised and, as if that public shaming wasn’t enough, the actor and her husband were also facing private heartache.

Told she was virtually infertile and having undergone surgery for endometriosis and three IVF cycles that produced no eggs, she was considering trying to become pregnant with a donor egg. It hadn’t been in the couple’s plan but, Whelan Browne says, she was desperate.

A new fertility doctor convinced her to have one more try, and she produced one embryo. “It was the lowest grade they will implant,” she says.

But it was successful, and their son, Duke, is now 15 months old. Whelan Browne says he’s a reminder of what matters, even when it meant that her husband couldn’t be in court with her for the first day of the defamation case as he was caring for Duke.

“I remember saying to [Rohan], ‘While it feels weird not to have you here, I feel

so good knowing there’s someone who needs you more than I do,’” she recalls.

“Duke brings you back – back to the flower he wants to touch on the way home, or the joy you can get from a sandpit. He’s a grounding force.”

As she approaches her 40th birthday in August, Whelan Browne reveals she wouldn’t have survived the ordeal without her husband’s support, even though she feels guilty for the impact the case has had on him. They’ve lost close friends, and she never anticipated it would drag on for so long.

After learning that the defamation case had been abandoned, the pair toasted with pineapple margaritas. “Coming into 40, I just want to be a great example to my son,” she continues. “And an ally to women everywhere.”

Her work has served as a steadying force throughout the ordeal, she explains, and she’s grateful to the directors and companies who have supported her.

“I continued to work because I felt if I did, it meant I wasn’t broken,” she reveals. “Part of the survival was saying, ‘I’m still here and I’m not going away.’”

Occasionally the brave face has faltered. She cried during a scene in the Melbourne Theatre Company ’s 2018 production of An Ideal Husband after taking a call from her legal team, and when a man in the audience heckled her during Twelfth Night later that year, she was terrified to go back onstage.

As for McLachlan, Whelan Browne tells Stellar she doesn’t feel vindictive: “I don’t take pleasure in someone else’s pain. All I thought was, I wish he’d never done this; [I] wish he’d just acknowledged the behaviour.’

Christie Whelan Browne features in this Sunday’s Stellar. Picture: Steven Chee.

Likewise, she doesn’t want the case to define her, even if leaving it behind is more like a gentle “shedding” than an abrupt stepping out of character.

“Someone sent me a quote: ‘You don’t know the weight of the burden you’re carrying until you don’t have to carry it anymore,’” she says. “I want to move on. I don’t want this to haunt me anymore.”

Originally published as Christie Whelan Browne reveals brutal toll of McLachlan trials