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Rebel Wilson vows to fight judgement slashing her Bauer defamation payout

Rebel Wilson has said she will appeal the Court of Appeal’s decision to slash her defamation payout from $4.5m to $600,000, describing the Court as “flippant” about her economic loss and “overall hurt and distress”.

Wilson took to Twitter early this morning to tell her followers she looked forward to appealing yesterday’s judgement by the Victorian Court of Appeal.

“There’s some really bizarre things in there guys that are so obviously challengeable!” she added.

Wilson was originally awarded $4.5m last September, the biggest defamation payout in Australian history, after she alleged she was defamed in several articles published in 2015 by Bauer Media, including a Woman’s Day story titled ‘Just who is the REAL Rebel?’.

The articles alleged Wilson had lied about her age, her name and her upbringing in Australia, and were featured across Australian magazines, including Bauer’s Australian Women’s Weekly, New Weekly and OK Magazine.

Wilson argued the ‘serial liar’ allegations had ruined her reputation and cost her lucrative movie roles.

The original payout was made up of $650,000 in general damages and $3,917,472 in special damages. But yesterday The Court of Appeal reduced the general damages payout and found the special damages to be wrongly awarded.

“Everybody knows I lost money after those maliciously defamatory articles were printed about me by @bauermedia in 2015. The learned trial judge and Australian jury on the case who heard all the evidence clearly agreed,” Wilson said.

“Was it wrong of me to pledge that the money received from the case was going to good causes?? To me, after working tirelessly day and night to rebuild my career, I thought it was the right thing to do.

“But somehow the Court of Appeal have been absolutely flippant with regards to my economic loss, not to mention my overall hurt and distress at having to stand up to these bullies.”

Yesterday, Bauer Media’s general counsel, Adrian Goss, said: “It was important for us to revisit the award of damages. The legal process has run its course and Bauer welcomes the court’s decision to set aside the entire award of damages for economic loss.

Goss also referenced the case’s broader implications for the media industry as a whole.

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