EXCLUSIVE: Rebel Wilson has enlisted one of Hollywood’s most pugilistic attorneys to take on the producers of her directorial debut.
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Fresh off locking down The Deb’ s spot as the closer of the Toronto International Film Festival, the Pitch Perfect star has hired Bryan Freedman, I’ve learned.
A lawyer who often brings an arsenal to a knife fight, the Liner Freedman Taitelman + Cooley LLP co-founder is expected to file a reaction soon to the defamation suit filed against Wilson by Deb producers Amanda Ghost and Gregory Cameron and EP Vince Holden on July 12.
Representatives for Freedman are mum, by sources close to the dispute confirmed the lawyer is working with Wilson. Wilson’s team did not respond to request for comment by Deadline on Freedman coming on board.
Full disclosure: An attorney for Gabrielle Union, Megyn Kelly, Tucker Carlson, Don Lemon, Chris Cuomo over the years and a scourge to NBCUniversal and Reality TV creators of late, Freedman has performed outside counsel work for Deadline’s parent company PMC in the past.
Often quick to come out swinging, there has been nothing filed in the Wilson case yet by Freedman. In fact, Freedman is not even listed yet among the lawyers on the court docket for the matter. Right now, the only thing scheduled for the matter is a case management hearing on November 26 before Judge Thomas D. Long.
Over two months after The Deb ’s September 15 TIFF debut, that hearing will bring Freedman up against the producer’s attorney, Camille Vasquez. If the Brown Rudnick lawyer’s name rings a bell, full points on the memory test. Vasquez was one the main attorneys in Johnny Depp’s successful and controversial 2022 defamation trial against ex-wife Amber Heard.
All of which saying, you could, at the very least, make a Lifetime movie out of this showdown with a movie at its heart.
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Wilson first made this all public on July 10 when the filmmaker took to social to take the producers to task for the feature musical’s TIFF screening. “So to have the joy of the movie being selected is one thing,” wrote Wilson. “But then to have the business partners that are involved in that movie turn around and say that no, the movie can’t premiere, is just beyond devastating.”
Accusing the trio of “bad behavior,” Wilson said Ghost, Cameron and Holden were guilty of inappropriate behavior towards the lead actress of the film”, embezzlement and retaliation.
Clapping back, the producers said that day Wilson’s “self-promotional claims are clearly intended to cause reputational harm” against them with “a false narrative to advance her own agenda.”
Two days later, the producers took Wilson to court.
“This lawsuit is about holding Rebel accountable for her attempts to bully Plaintiffs into conceding to her unreasonable demands by spreading vicious lies without regard for the irreparable damage her reckless words would cause on the hard-earned personal and professional reputations of Plaintiffs,” the 12-page complaint declared
Where it goes now, we’ll have to wait and see, but with Freedman in the legal driver’s seat expect it to get fast and furious soon.
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