Yes, Johnny Depp won his defamation trial against his ex-wife, Amber Heard, in 2022.
Depp started dating actress Amber Heard, with whom he had co-starred in “The Rum Diary” (2011), after parting ways with Vanessa Paradis. In February 2015, Depp and Heard exchanged vows in front of family and friends. Heard requested a temporary restraining order against Depp when she filed for divorce from him in May 2016.
She claimed in her court filing that he had been verbally and physically abusive throughout their relationship, while under the influence of drugs or alcohol. In response, Depp claimed that she was "attempting to secure a premature financial resolution." Depp denied these accusations.
In August 2016, a settlement was reached, and the divorce was finalized in January 2017. In a joint statement they released after Heard dismissed the restraining order, they claimed that their "relationship was intensely passionate and at times volatile, but always bound by love." "Neither party has made false accusations for financial gain." "There was never any intent of physical or emotional harm." Heard promised to donate the $7 million divorce settlement Depp gave her to the ACLU and the Children's Hospital of Los Angeles (CHLA).
Depp V. News Group Newspapers Ltd.
When The Sun's publishers, News Group Newspapers (NGN), published an article in April 2018 titled "GONE POTTY How Can J.K. Rowling be genuinely happy with the casting of wife-beater Johnny Depp in the new Fantastic Beasts film?"
Depp filed a libel lawsuit against NGN in the UK. In July 2020, the case went to trial in front of a large audience, and both Depp and Heard gave days-long depositions. The High Court of Justice determined that 12 of the 14 violent incidents Heard claimed to have experienced were "substantially true" in November 2020.
The allegations Heard made against Depp were acknowledged by the court as having hurt Heard's career and activism, despite Depp's assertion that they were a hoax. After the verdict, Warner Bros., the production house of the Fantastic Beasts franchise, asked Depp to leave the series.
Depp appealed the decision, and his attorneys claimed that Heard had broken her promise to donate to charity and that the pledge had a significant impact on the judge's opinion of Heard. Heard's legal team responded that she had not yet donated the full amount because of the lawsuits Depp had brought against her. The Court of Appeal dismissed Depp's request to have the judgment reversed in March 2021.
As the judge in the trial had reached his verdict by evaluating the evidence related to the 14 alleged incidents of violence, the Court of Appeal did not find the argument that the charity pledge influenced the outcome convincing. Instead, it noted that the issue of the donation was raised after the judge had already reached his decision.
Depp V. Heard
Heard's op-ed for The Washington Post from December 2018 led to Depp suing Heard for defamation in February 2019. Depp eventually filed a lawsuit, claiming that the op-ed contained three false statements, the first of which was the headline, "Amber Heard: I spoke up against sexual violence—and faced our culture's wrath—that has to change."
Secondly, Heard wrote: "Then two years ago, I became a public figure representing domestic abuse, and I felt the full force of our culture's wrath for women who spoke out." And thirdly, Heard's writing: "I had the rare vantage point of seeing, in real time, how institutions protect men accused of abuse." Depp claimed that he had been the victim of Heard's abuse, that her accusations were untrue, and that Disney had turned down his casting in subsequent roles as a result.
In August 2020, Heard counterclaimed against Depp, claiming that he had coordinated "a harassment campaign via Twitter and [by] orchestrating online petitions in an effort to get her fired from Aquaman and L'Oreal." Heard's countersuit ultimately went to trial over three claims that Depp had libeled her through remarks made by his then-attorney, Adam Waldman, and printed in the Daily Mail in April 2020.
Waldman first said that "Heard and her friends in the media used fake sexual violence allegations as both a sword and a shield." Second, according to Waldman, there was an incident at a penthouse where "Amber and her friends spilled a little wine and roughed up the place, got their stories straight under the direction of a lawyer and publicist, and then placed a second call to 911" as a "hoax" against Depp. Thirdly, Heard had perpetrated an "abuse hoax" against Depp.
Adam Waldman, Depp's attorney, was fired by the court-appointed judge in the case in October 2020 after he revealed to the media sensitive information covered by a protective order. Heard's attorneys filed to have the defamation suit dismissed after Depp's lawsuit against The Sun was decided the following month, but judge Penny Azcarate rejected their request because Heard was not a defendant in the UK case. A New York judge mandated in August 2021 that the ACLU release records pertaining to Heard's donation to the organization for charitable purposes.
From April 11 to June 1, 2022, Fairfax County, Virginia, hosted the Depp-Heard trial. The jury awarded Depp $10 million in compensatory damages and $5 million in punitive damages from Heard after concluding that all three of the statements in Heard's op-ed were false, defamed Depp, and made with actual malice. Due to a cap imposed by Virginia state law, the punitive damages were decreased to $350,000. The jury determined that Waldman's second statement to the Daily Mail was false, defamatory, and made with actual malice, but that his first and third statements to the newspaper were not.
This decision was made in response to Heard's countersuit. Heard received $2 million in compensatory damages and no punitive damages from Depp as a result. Depp responded to the trial's verdict by stating that the "jury gave me my life back." "I am truly humbled." Additionally, Depp said he was "overwhelmed by the outpouring of love and the colossal support and kindness from around the world." "I hope that my quest to have the truth told will have helped others, men or women, who have found themselves in my situation, and that those supporting them never give up."
Heard settled the case against Depp in December 2022 after she had appealed the judgment, insisting that it was "not an act of concession." Depp's attorneys countered that the "jury's unanimous decision and the resulting judgment in Mr. Depp's favor against Ms. Heard remain fully in place" and that Depp would receive $1 million as part of the settlement, which "Depp is pledging and will donate to charities."
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