Very private star Toni Collette slams McGrath real estate publicity campaign

ACTRESS Toni Collette has complained a prestige Sydney real estate agent told the media about who owned her property.

Bronte home

ACTRESS Toni Collette has complained that a prestige Sydney real estate agent exaggerated the sale price of her eastern suburbs home, then told the media about who owned the property, despite Collette's desire to keep her identity private.

In emails tendered to the NSW Supreme Court, Collette said the agent she hired to sell her Bronte home in 2011 told media it was her home and invited the press to the auction.Collette also blamed the unnamed agent for failing to achieve the anticipated $4 million selling price on her home in Bronte Rd.

The court heard Collette emailed McGrath real estate agent Ben Collier to complain that another McGrath agent had "enticed" her and her husband, musician Dave Galafassi, into thinking they could sell the house for more than $4 million. Collette said the female agent was quoted in real estate pages as saying she expected to sell the home for $3.5 million.

"(The agent) broke all kinds of confidentiality agreements," Collette wrote in the email on January 3 last year.

"You know that I am an extremely private person and am never one to get in bed with the media. I had stated that we specifically did not want this but (the agent's) ongoing swell of press to do with the sale of our house was nothing but detrimental. She even allowed press into the actual auction! Outrageous.

"People are nervous enough when it comes to bidding, let alone with several cameras shoved in their faces."

The emails emerged during a lawsuit in which Collette and her husband are being sued for $1.6 million for pulling out of a deal to buy another property.

The pair signed a contract to buy a Paddington terrace for $6.35 million, but pulled out of the deal and bought another home in Bronte for $5.5 million.p