Justice Wigney told the court in 2019 Rush had suffered a financial loss as a result of the publications, but the prospect of him never being able to work again was “very remote”. Rush said the claims had created “irreparable damage” to his reputation when he launched the defamation action. “It was an overblown and kind of bloated tabloid event and the court found the result in my favour and I don’t like talking about it,” he said. “It was bruising for everyone involved, I think, on both sides,” he told Deadline on July 7. In Karlovy Vary, Rush spoke about the case, but made it clear he didn’t want to talk about it in depth.

The ruling was upheld on appeal in July 2020. He was awarded $850,000 in general damages and about $2 million in special damages to cover past and future economic loss.

Rush won a defamation case against the Daily Telegraph in 2019 after federal court Justice Michael Wigney found its publisher Nationwide News and journalist Jonathon Moran were reckless regarding the truth when they reported Rush had been accused of inappropriate behaviour during a Sydney Theatre Company production of King Lear. In July, he returned to the spotlight in the Czech Republic to receive the Crystal Globe for Outstanding Contribution to World Cinema at the 56th Karlovy Vary International Film Festival. Other than the lead in the 2018 production of Storm Boy and a high-profile defamation case, the Melbourne-based “giant of acting” has been out of the headlines after almost two years in forced COVID lockdowns.

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