Australian film star Rebel Wilson saw her “world collapse” when a series of articles in 2015 published by Bauer Media painted her as a fake and a liar, claiming she had lied about her age, name and childhood, a court has head.

As the defamation case brought by the Bridesmaids actor began in Melbourne on Monday, the supreme court of Victoria heard that Wilson was a rags-to-riches case torn down by a tabloid publisher who simply wanted to sell magazines.

Wilson’s lawyer, Matthew Collins QC, said her “world collapsed” when the articles appeared in several of the group’s magazines, including Woman’s Day and the Australian Women’s Weekly, at a time when her career was reaching a “pinnacle” with the release of the film Pitch Perfect 2.

Collins told the jury about Wilson’s working-class Sydney childhood and the hardships she had faced in making it in Hollywood, years after she had a dream about winning an Oscar while sick with malaria.

He said Wilson thought “she’d never been hit with such nastiness” when Bauer Media published “grubby articles” that defamed her.

“Rebel Wilson is an Australian success story,” Collins said on Monday. “She is extraordinarily talented. But her success is the result of almost two decades of very hard work.

“It’s a case of how this publisher refused to let facts get in the way of a good story.”

Appearing for Bauer Media, Georgina Schoff QC said the actor told “tall tales” and wanted to add a “touch of fantasy” to her childhood.

Collins said that, in the wake of the articles, Wilson stopped being offered roles, was fired from several films, began taking sleeping tablets and developed a stress rash on her arms and around her mouth.

The court also heard about a stoush between Wilson and Bauer Media after a journalist contacted the star’s 86-year-old grandmother and “tried to manipulate” the elderly woman to dish “dirt” on her granddaughter.

Wilson then tweeted about the journalist, stating “here she is, total scum”, but got the woman’s identity wrong.

Bauer Media then threatened to take legal action.

Schoff told the jury that was “why we are all here”. She argued no “reasonable reader” would have thought any less of Wilson upon reading the articles, which had “done her no harm”.

“They weren’t nasty articles,” she said.

She also argued the articles told the truth, following an interview by the Walkley award-winning journalist Caroline Overington who claimed Wilson lied to her about her age.

Schoff said it wasn’t true Wilson had “grown up in a ghetto” and had in fact attended an “elite private boarding school”.

She told the court Wilson had told Overington her auntie had been married to Walt Disney, giving her open access to Disneyland as a child.

The hearing continues. Wilson is expected to give evidence later in the trial.