Supreme Court orders Rebel Wilson to pay legal costs

The actress has lost a chunk of her defamation payout after a court rejected her bid for Bauer to pay her legal bill.

Wilson has vowed to appeal the Victorian Court of Appeal’s decision to slash her damages award.

Rebel Wilson has lost a significant chunk of her defamation payout, after the Supreme Court of Victoria rejected her bid for Bauer to pay her appeal costs.

The 39-year-old Hollywood star, whose record $4.6 million damages award against the publisher was slashed to $600,000 two weeks ago, must now shoulder the full cost of defending the appeal, along with part of Bauer’s costs and interest on her original payout — leaving her out of pocket by about $200,000.

Wilson previously vowed to take her fight to the High Court of Australia but is yet to file an application for leave to appeal.

Should she do so, and lose — and if costs are awarded against her — precious little may remain of the payout.

The two-day Victorian Court of Appeal hearing is believed to have cost the Pitch Perfect 3 star about $130,000, including solicitor fees and fees for her barristers, Renee Enbom and $9900-a-day Matthew Collins QC. She will also lose more than $60,000 in interest due on the $4.1m she must now repay Bauer.

The actress vowed earlier this month to appeal that court’s decision to reduce her damages for defamatory articles in Bauer ­titles, including Woman’s Day.

If the High Court hears the matter, Wilson is expected to incur further legal expenses of about $200,000.

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The Supreme Court yesterday ordered Wilson to pay 80 per cent of Bauer’s costs, covering its legal bill for the points it won on appeal, expected to be assessed at about $70,000. But the court also granted Wilson an indemnity certificate, meaning that she can apply to the Costs Board to reimburse her for up to $50,000.

Bauer must pay her estimated $1.4m costs for the 22-day trial.

Supreme Court judge John Dixon last year awarded Wilson $3.9m in special damages to compensate her for lost earnings after she claimed to have missed out on lucrative movie roles after the “sting” of the defamatory stories reached Hollywood — but the Court of Appeal found that he had done so in error.

The court also reduced Wilson’s general damages from $650,000 to $600,000. The ­actress had sued over articles in 2015 that painted her as a serial liar in order to make it in Hollywood, and argued the “firestorm” created by the articles caused studio heads to shun her.

But the Court of Appeal found that the trial judge had wrongly relied upon “inferences” to award Wilson economic damages.

“We would have thought that someone could have given evidence … about the currency of the articles in influential circles, rather than invite the judge to draw an inference of the grapevine effect at work,” the Court of Appeal judges said in their written decision.

The actress, who is in Prague shooting a film, was yet to comment on the costs order when The Australian went to print.

Wilson previously declared the appeal decision “bizarre” and “obviously challengeable”.