Falls Church: Actors Johnny Depp and Amber Heard have settled their defamation lawsuits after a high-profile lawsuit earlier this year in which the former couple accused each other of physical and verbal abuse. Hurd announced the settlement on social media on Monday. Both sides filed appeals of various aspects of the jury’s decision in June. A seven-member civil jury awarded Depp $10 million in damages, but also awarded Heard $2 million.
Depp’s camp said the deal included a $1 million payment from Depp to settle all financial claims. Depp’s lawyers said he would donate the money to charity. “We are pleased to formally close the door on this painful chapter for Mr. Depp, who has made clear throughout this process that his priority has been to uncover the truth. The jury’s unanimous decision and resulting verdict in favor of Mr. Depp against Ms. Heard is fully sustained,” said Depp’s attorneys, Benjamin Chew and Camille Vazquez.
Both sides argued to a jury in Fairfax County Circuit Court that the other had defamed them. Depp said he was disrespected by Heard when she wrote a 2018 op-ed piece in The Washington Post in which she described herself as “a public figure representing domestic abuse.”
View the post shared by Amber Heard
Depp’s attorneys said that he was defamed by the article, although it never mentioned his name because, they argued, it clearly referred to the abuse allegations that Heard made in the divorce proceedings. were filed against Depp during Heard, on the other hand, said she was vilified by Depp when one of her lawyers called her abuse allegations a “fraud”.
In a post on Instagram on Monday, Heard said the decision to settle was a difficult one. “I never chose it,” she wrote. “I defended my truth and in doing so destroyed my life as I knew it. The slander I faced on social media is just an expanded version of the ways women are treated when they come forward. is victimized again.
The trial went on for several months and became a cultural phenomenon as millions of Americans watched the proceedings on TV. Ostensibly a defamation case, the lawsuit often devolved into ugly mudslinging as both Depp and Heard denied each other’s allegations of abuse for several days and accused each other of terrible behavior during their brief marriage. . In the courthouse and across the country, Depp’s supporters enthusiastically supported him, and Heard was routinely mocked as she made detailed allegations of physical, emotional, and sexual abuse.
The decision in a Virginia court in Depp’s favor came after a judge in the United Kingdom ruled against Depp in a defamation lawsuit brought against a British tabloid. The judge in that 2020 case concluded that Heard had indeed been a victim of abuse at the hands of Depp on multiple occasions.