Actor Craig McLachlan has been accused of repeatedly lying in his defamation trial, after giving contradictory evidence about on-stage kissing during a production of The Rocky Horror Show.
McLachlan is suing the ABC and Nine Newspapers for defamation over stories from 2018 containing allegations he indecently assaulted, harassed, bullied and exposed himself to female cast members during the 2014 Australian tour of The Rocky Horror Show.
He is also suing actor Christie Whelan Browne, who made the allegations to the ABC's 7.30 program and the Sydney Morning Herald.
Two days ago, McLachlan said he never kissed any of his female co-stars below the shoulders or arms during a bedroom scene in the show, but today admitted he once kissed Whelan Browne on the hip.
He said the only reason he did so was because he dropped a fake cigarette used as a prop and had to improvise while trying to retrieve it from the bed.
"Because I dropped the e-cigarette and Christie saw it as well, so I jokingly kissed her on the hip while I scrambled to find the e-cigarette. It was quite a funny moment," he told the court.
But the barrister representing the media outlets, Michael Hodge QC, argued McLachlan inappropriately touched and kissed not only Whelan Browne under the bed covers, but two other actors who were understudies during the tour.
This is something McLachlan said was "impossible" as there wasn't enough time during the scene and he was too focused on putting the e-cigarette in a specially designed pocket under the covers.
He also claimed some of the kissing sounds picked up by his microphone while under the covers were what he called "air kisses" and not actually on his co-star's body.
"You're making this up aren't you?" Mr Hodge said.
"No I'm not Mr Hodge," McLachlan said.
"That's just a lie ... a deliberate lie," Mr Hodge said.
"No it's not," McLachlan said.
Later during cross-examination the actor contradicted evidence he gave earlier this week in court about a conversation with a co-star in April 2014.
On Tuesday, he denied telling the actor, who cannot be identified, that he "couldn't wait for the bedroom scene" while in her dressing room one night.
But today, Mr Hodge showed McLachlan a 2018 affidavit he signed which stated he did say this.
McLachlan then claimed he could recall mentioning the bed scene to the actor but that it was only in reference to "corpsing" — something which he described as actors intentionally trying to make each other laugh while on stage.
"We would routinely talk about making each other laugh or not laugh in the bed scene," McLachlan said.
Mr Hodge then said McLachlan was just trying to "spin" evidence that didn't support his earlier claims.
"No I haven't," he said.
The defamation trial is expected to run for around five weeks and will hear from 11 women who have accused McLachlan of inappropriate behaviour.
All worked with him on Australian TV or theatre productions.
McLachlan says the media reporting of such allegations damaged his reputation and caused him so much distress he had to be admitted into a mental health facility in 2018.
