Rebel Wilson’s Bauer defamation payout slashed from $4.5m to $600,000
Rebel Wilson’s defamation payout from Bauer Media has been cut from $4.5m to $600,000 in court today.
Wilson was originally awarded $4.5m last September, which was the biggest defamation payout in Australian history. The payout was made up of $650,000 in general damages and $3,917,472 in special damages.
The Court of Appeal has reduced the general damages payout to $600,000, and has found the special damages to have been wrongly awarded.
That’s a huge difference, though I’m not sure after this big decision, it’ll deter Bauer to focus on quality journalism, rather than creating ‘great content’ for the masses.
I highly doubt that, Zara!!
Highly unlikely Zara
This is excellent news. The original award was far too excessive and would have had a chilling effect on proper journalists (not just trash mag journos). $600,000 and huge legal costs is a pretty hefty kick to make them think twice about running defamatory nonsense.
To be honest, for a multi-million (possibly billion) dollar company like Bauer? I don’t think this amount will cause them any sort of second thoughts.
billion hahahaha
Bauer Global would have a billion sitting in one of their spare bank accounts that they would have forgotten about.
Bauer Media Group
Revenue €2.316 billion (2015)
Rebel Wilson has received so much publicity and new film roles from this case. She really should be paying Bauer, not the other way round. Case in point: I didn’t even know who she was before I read about her on Mumbrella.
Can you prove that?
In a court of law? No. Nor would I particularly care to.
It made me chuckle that Wilson’s whole case was predicated on the notion that she lost roles because of these articles alleging that she lied about her age. The fact is that no-one has ever lost a role in Hollywood for lying about their age. I’m quite sure there are plenty of actors who have lost roles for being truthful about their age……
Poor petal.
She lost roles and couldn’t attend the hearing because she was away filming on location in Europe.
And suffer the poor people who were promised that the $4m was going to be donated to them. It’s probably worth Bauer making a $4m charity donation on her behalf to negate that ‘woe is me’ line as well.