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The Johnny Depp vs. Amber Heard defamation trial came to an end on June 1, 2022, with the jury ruling in favour of the former. Jurors delivered a unanimous decision and announced that Heard defamed Depp in her 2018 Washington Post op-ed, where she called herself a domestic violence survivor.
Depp filed a $50 million lawsuit against Heard, citing the article and claiming that it damaged his public image and negatively impacted his career. Although the Pirates of the Caribbean star was not directly mentioned in the article, his legal team alleged that the actor was painted as Heard's alleged abuser in the story.
Heard later countersued Depp for $100 million and alleged that he abused her multiple times during their relationship. However, a Fairfax County court jury sided with Depp and awarded him $15 million in compensatory and punitive damages (with the latter being cut down to $350,000, as per legal law in the state of Virginia).
The Aquaman star was also awarded $2 million for winning a claim about Depp’s former attorney Adam Waldman defaming her through certain statements during the legal battle. Shortly after the final verdict, The Washington Post added an editor’s note at the beginning of Heard’s controversial 2018 op-ed.
A look into The Washington Post’s editor’s note for Amber Heard’s op-ed
In 2018, Amber Heard wrote an explosive op-ed in the Washington Post titled, “I spoke up against s*xual violence—and faced our culture’s wrath. That has to change.” The article later became the subject of Depp’s $50 million defamation lawsuit against his ex-wife.
When Heard lost the longstanding lawsuit on June 1, The Washington Post added an editor’s note on the online version of the actress’ op-ed. The editor noted that Depp sued Heard for defamation in 2019 in relation to the same article.
It was then mentioned that a Fairfax County Circuit Court jury found Heard liable on three counts which were deemed as “false and defamatory” by Depp and his legal team. The first statement, featured in the note and considered defamatory in court, included the title of the article.
A second statement saw Heard calling herself a representative of domestic abuse survivors:
“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 speak out.”
In the third statement, Amber Heard claimed that institutions often protect men who are accused of committing abuse:
“I had the rare vantage point of seeing, in real time, how institutions protect men accused of abuse.
The editor’s note also mentioned that the jury separately found, in one of Heard’s three countersuits, that Depp defamed the actress through his lawyer Adam Waldman.
Legal Insurrection founder and Cornell Law School professor William A. Jacobson told Fox News that the Washington Post’s editor’s note was appropriate:
“It was the right thing to do where you had an op-ed written by somebody and that op-ed published in your newspaper was, in fact, the subject of a negative jury verdict. I think it was appropriate for them to add that note to it, so that anyone in the future going forward reading it would know what at least a jury has held about that.”
However, the professor was unsure if the publication should be held accountable for the op-ed:
“Whether Johnny Depp goes after The Washington Post, I think is a strategic issue. He has already won, he has already been awarded the damages that he would be entitled to, so I can't see how he would get more damages, because the jury has already said, ‘Here is how you have been damaged and here are your compensatory damages.’”
Meanwhile, criminal defense attorney Brian Claypool shared that the publication should also face legal liabilities for the op-ed:
“I absolutely believe that the Washington Post should be held accountable as well in this case. A jury just decided that all three of the statements in that Washington Post op-ed were deemed defamatory.”
During her own testimony in the defamation trial, Amber Heard continued to claim that the op-ed was not directed towards Johnny Depp and said that the “only one” who thought that the piece was about the actor was Depp himself.
Twitter reacts to The Washington Post’s editor’s note for Amber Heard’s 2018 op-ed
As the Johnny Depp vs. Amber Heard defamation trial came to an end with the former’s victory, The Washington Post added an editor’s note on Heard’s 2018 op-ed that served as a key element of the defamation lawsuit.
The editor’s note soon came under scrutiny and several people took to Twitter to share their reaction to the latest move by the publication:
As reactions continue to pour in online, it remains to be seen if Depp will hold The Washington Post accountable for publishing Heard’s op-ed on their platform. Meanwhile, the New York Post reported that Amber Heard’s team is allegedly planning to appeal the verdict within the next 30 days.
