UPDATE: Rebel Wilson vows to appeal for charities

Rebel Wilson will appeal the decision to slash her defamation payout by almost $4 million, tweeting that yesterday’s judgment is “clearly not fair”.

The Australian actor said charities, to whom she had planned to give the money, would now miss out, while Bauer Media had got away “with their seriously harmful acts for a very low pay day”.

Wilson was set to receive the biggest defamation payout in Australian history in June last year over multiple articles in Woman’s Day and Women’s Weekly that claimed she had lied about her age, real name, and childhood. The jury found the articles wrongly presented her as a serial liar. She was awarded $650,000 in general damages and $3,917,472 in special damages.

Victoria’s Supreme Court yesterday rejected Wilson’s claim she “suffered a loss of an opportunity” for three lead roles in feature films “between mid-2015 and the end of 2016” and the judge therefore “set aside” the special damages amount.

Wilson said she looked forward to appealing yesterday’s decision, claiming the Court of Appeal had been “absolutely flippant” with regards to her economic loss, “not to mention my overall hurt and distress at having to stand up to these bullies”.

There has been mixed reactions from the public with many taking to social media to show their support for Wilson, or the court’s decision.