Actress Rebel Wilson has blasted members of the Australian media for "twisting" the facts in her ongoing defamation case.
The Pitch Perfect star was awarded $3.6 million (£2.6 million) in damages, a record-breaking payout for a defamation case Down Under, in September (17) following a trial against Bauer Media executives, who were accused of ruining her reputation and painting her as a liar in articles published in 2015.
Rebel was also awarded costs, but the actual figure has yet to be determined, and her attorneys appeared in court on Thursday (08Mar18) to outline their argument for Bauer bosses to compensate the comedienne for the $1 million (£720,000) she had to shell out for legal fees.
The development was picked up by a number of Australian news outlets, with some reporters suggesting Rebel was just fighting for the sake of winning more cash, having shared a Twitter message reading, "Girls just wanna have funds" on the eve of the court date.
After the hearing, Rebel, who was not in court, took to Twitter to take aim at what she claimed was one-sided press coverage of the case, noting her tweet had nothing to do with the legal battle, and is actually a "marketing tag line" for her forthcoming movie, The Hustle, with Anne Hathaway.
She then embarked on a lengthy rant calling on "ANY decent journalists in Australia" to investigate the alleged "collusion" between Bauer bosses and officials at local news organisations who were continuing to "stand with 'journalists' who have been proven guilty of making up rubbish stories and printing them knowing they are fake, all in the name of corporate greed".
"There is clear media collusion and they are now twisting what was a very simple story," Rebel stated.
She went on to explain the fight for damages "was never about the money" and was simply about "restoring my reputation and my career", having "legitimately lost millions of dollars between 2015-2017".
Rebel claims she has been "aggressively bullied and threatened" by Bauer representatives, even though she offered to settle the case for a fraction of the damages before it went to trial.
Now, the actress is determined to keep up her fight for justice, and reveals she plans to either donate all the funds to charity or use it to "create scholarships/jobs in the Australian entertainment industry".
"This whole ordeal is an awful thing to have gone through and to continually face," Rebel added. "I am trying to be tough. I just want to be able to give my winnings away and create positive stories from something very negative that has happened to me."
She concluded her Twitter posts by sharing an inspirational message for her female followers in recognition of International Women's Day on Thursday.
"Happy #InternationalWomensDay," she wrote. "Get it girls!! Stand up for yourselves, even though that can be hard!!"
