Film producer Amanda Ghost tells NSW court bath with star was medical emergency

A producer accused of inappropriate conduct when she “had a bath” with the lead actor on Rebel Wilson’s movie The Deb has told a court the incident had been mischaracterised in order to “embarrass, shame and blackmail”.

Media and entertainment executive Amanda Ghost told the NSW Supreme Court that she did not “have a bath” with Charlotte MacInnes but had shared a “vessel of hot water” with her after a medical incident.

“I was trying to warm up,” Ms Ghost told the court. “It was a hot bath to warm you up. We were not naked, we were both in swimmers. It was a vessel of hot water.”

The definition of a bath and what having a bath might entail became the subject of evidence in the legal stoush between Ms Wilson and production company AI Film Production and the three producers, Ms Ghost, her husband Gregor Cameron and Vince Holden.

AI Film and the trio of producers allege that the Pitch Perfect star sabotaged and blocked the release of the film. Ms Wilson is accused of undermining negotiations with distributors and threatening legal action against anyone showing the movie.

AI Film also alleges she breached various contractual obligations and directorial duties, engaged in misleading or deceptive conduct and repeatedly committed the tort of injurious falsehood.

Ms Wilson has countersued, seeking almost $800,000 in production fees and costs she says is owed to her company Camp Sugar, which her mother Sue Bownds co-owns.

The court has been told the “bath incident” was the subject of allegations against Ms Ghost of inappropriate behaviour.

She did not elaborate on who had sought to use the incident to blackmail her in a demand letter but maintained she had done nothing wrong.

“I did not take a bath with the lead actress of a movie,” Ms Ghost testified under-cross examination by Ms Wilson’s barrister Dauid Sibtain SC.

“I did get into a vessel of water with a lead actress. I got into a bath, I did not have a bath.”

Mr Sibtain suggested Ms Ghost was being disingenuous with her distinction to which she described a bath as “two people naked, soaped up, washing each other”.

Ms Ghost told the court she was neither anxious or ashamed about what happened in the bathroom of the Bondi penthouse where she and Ms MacInnes were staying on September 5, 2023.

According to her account, she suffered an extreme medical reaction to swimming in cold water at Bondi that left her shaking uncontrollably. Ms Ghost said she got into a “bathtub full of hot water” that was occupied at the time by Ms MacInnes, who was also cold after the swim, in order to warm up.