Rebel Wilson has been accused in court of being a liar who made up terrible claims about her colleagues and completely rewrote history.

The Pitch Perfect star copped the blunt assessment in the dying hours of a fiery defamation battle where she is being sued by Charlotte MacInnes, the lead actor in musical comedy The Deb which Wilson directed, co-produced and starred in.

MacInnes claims Wilson defamed her in a series of social media posts that suggested she is a liar and a sellout who walked back a sexual misconduct complaint to further her career.

The posts claimed MacInnes confided to the older actor – and later recanted – she felt uncomfortable when the film’s co-producer Amanda Ghost asked to have a shower and a bath together.

MacInnes denies making or retracting a complaint, insisting she was not uncomfortable when the pair shared a bath in their swimwear after Ghost suffered a medical episode in September 2023.

MacInnes’ barrister Sue Chrysanthou SC accused Wilson of a “complete revision of history” littered with dishonesty during her emphatic closing address in the Federal Court on Friday.

She noted the Bridesmaids actor testified she told local producer Greer Simpkin about the alleged complaint on the day it was made to her, but that had been contradicted in court.

Simpkin gave evidence she had not heard that Wilson claimed her co-star felt uncomfortable about the incident until it was relayed by Ghost a week later.

It was just one example of glaring inconsistencies in Wilson’s evidence which has been repudiated by others, Chrysanthou told the court.

“She is a fantastical liar who has made up terrible, terrible allegations about multiple people and her own witnesses have discredited her,” she said.

“We say Ms Wilson cannot be believed on anything she has said.”

The first-time director lied to Ghost about receiving a complaint to create division between her and MacInnes, whom she sought to paint as a troublemaker, Ms Chrysanthou said.

A text from Wilson which accused the young actor of leaking information to the film’s writer makes it clear she was set on undermining MacInnes’ relationships with others, she argued.

The uncontested facts of the bathroom incident are a medical episode occurred, no one felt uncomfortable and a witness didn’t think anything untoward happened.

“One can hardly imagine a less sexy environment for some kind of harassment to occur – shaking and hives and tea provided by (the witness),” Chrysanthou told the court.

MacInnes has suffered devastating harm as a result of the social media posts and hasn’t worked since she starred in a stage production – a role which she had previously secured, her barrister said.

“My client has been unable to eat, unable to sleep, has been distressed … (she) fears what Rebel Wilson is going to do to her next,” Chrysanthou said.

“No young woman dreams of being pulled into the spotlight by a celebrity and maligned”.

But Wilson testified the young star doesn’t appear to have sustained any damage to her reputation or career, pointing to the lead role and a six-figure record deal MacInnes has secured.

“She’s changed her story, she’s flip-flopped and she’s been given huge benefits,” she said.

Wilson gave evidence she had seen many photos of MacInnes on international trips and in expensive hotels, some of which had been sent to her by the ‘I hate Amanda Ghost fanclub’.

“Prior to The Deb she was relatively unknown and (I) understood she did not have the means to travel around the world in luxury,” the A-lister wrote in her affidavit.

Her barrister Dauid Sibtain SC will begin his closing remarks on Friday afternoon.

The forecast had promised warm spring sunshine – ideal weather for a forest bathing class. Instead, a squally shower arrived without warning, and we ended up hugging tree trunks more out of necessity than mindfulness. In full leaf, the mature beech grove canopy would have kept us dry, but this early in the season, the leaves had only just unfurled, letting the rain through to saturate my jumper. For a while, we listened in silence as the foliage changed its voice, a dry whisper deepening into a steady, percussive patter.

Thankfully, the downpour passed as quickly as it had arrived. Light filtered through the leaves, and we drifted back along the path until the trees opened into a small clearing. The instructor suggested that we sit on a semi-circle of fallen trunks, urging us to feel the texture of the rough-stalked feather moss (Brachythecium rutabulum) cushioning our makeshift benches. Flasks were passed around, the nettle and chamomile tea offering a welcome warmth.

The woman beside me lifted her hat from her lap and paused, peering into its shallow crown. There was a cucumber spider inside. Its abdomen was just 5mm long but an eye-catching yellowish-green, with a conspicuous red mark just below the spinnerets.

Five species occur in Britain, but only two are common: Araniella cucurbitina, first described in 1757 by the Swedish arachnologist Carl Alexander Clerck as Araneus cucurbitinus, before being reassigned to its current classification in 1942; and Araniella opisthographa, originally described as Araneus cucurbitinus opisthographa by the Polish arachnologist Władysław Kulczyński in 1905, then later recognised as a distinct species. They often share the same habitat, can typically only be distinguished by microscopic examination of their genitalia, and are believed to hybridise on occasion.

I offered my finger. The spider stepped from woven straw to skin. After a moment’s orientation on my knuckle, it began moving upward, tracing the contours of my hand. Clambering on to my sleeve, its colouration became startlingly vivid against the black fleece, its cryptic camouflage compromised. I coaxed it back on to my finger and gently guided it on to a low branch. In the diffuse beech light, the green was perfectly leaf-matched, the spider disappearing seamlessly into the surrounding foliage.