This. A core part of defamation cases (especially from a damages point of view), is showing that the false statements caused harm, and that's generally by way of those statements influncing other's beliefs and actions (apart from harassment, this could also take the form of people being unwilling to work with/provide a service to the defamed party because of said statements).

(Note that it's important that the statements are false, and depending on some details, that either they were known to be false at the time, or that there was a reckless disregard to the truth, i.e. no effort was made to determine if they were true or false. If you state something that is true, or is false but you had good reason to believe is true, or that is merely an opinion, then it's not defamation even if someone harassess them or worse)