Jury sides with Depp in libel case, awards him $10M
FAIRFAX, Va. — A jury sided Wednesday with Johnny Depp in his libel lawsuit against ex- wife Amber Heard, awarding the “Pirates of the Caribbean” actor more than $10 million and vindicating his allegations that Ms. Heard lied about Mr. Depp abusing her before and during their brief marriage.
But in a split decision, the jury also found that Ms. Heard was defamed by one of Mr. Depp’s lawyers, who accused her of creating a detailed hoax that included roughing up their apartment to look worse for police. The jury awarded her $2 million in damages.
The verdicts bring an end to a televised trial that Mr. Depp had hoped would help restore his reputation, although it turned into a spectacle that offered a window into a vicious marriage.
Ms. Heard, who was stoic in the courtroom as the verdict was read, later said she was heartbroken.
“I’m even more disappointed with what this verdict means for other women. It’s a setback. It sets back the clock to a time when a woman who spoke up and spoke out could be publicly humiliated. It sets back the idea that violence against women is to be taken seriously,’’ she said in a statement posted on her Twitter account.
Mr. Depp, who was not in court Wednesday, said “the jury gave me my life back. I am truly humbled.”
“I hope that my quest to have the truth be told will have helped others, men or women, who have found themselves in my situation, and that those supporting them never give up,” he said in a statement posted to Instagram.
Mr. Depp sued Ms. Heard for libel in Fairfax County Circuit Court over a December 2018 op-ed she wrote in The Washington Post describing herself as “a public figure representing domestic abuse.” His lawyers said he was defamed by the article even though it never mentioned his name.
The jury found in Mr. Depp’s favor on all three of his claims relating to specific statements in the 2018 piece.
In evaluating Ms. Heard’s counterclaims, jurors considered three statements by a lawyer for Mr. Depp who called her allegations a hoax. They found she was defamed by one of them, in which the lawyer claimed that she and friends “spilled a little wine and roughed the place up, got their stories straight,” and called police.
The jury found Mr. Depp should receive $10 million in compensatory damages and $5 million in punitive damages, but the judge said state law caps punitive damages at $350,000, meaning Mr. Depp was awarded $10.35 million.
While the case was ostensibly about libel, most of the testimony focused on whether Ms. Heard had been physically and sexually abused, as she claimed. Ms. Heard enumerated more than a dozen alleged assaults, including a fight in Australia — where Mr. Depp was shooting a “Pirates of the Caribbean” sequel — in which Mr. Depp lost the tip of his middle finger and Ms. Heard said she was sexually assaulted with a liquor bottle.
Mr. Depp said he never hit Ms. Heard and that she was the abuser, although Ms. Heard’s attorneys highlighted years-old text messages Mr. Depp sent apologizing to Ms. Heard for his behavior as well as profane texts he sent to a friend in which Mr. Depp said he wanted to kill Ms. Heard and defile her dead body.
When the verdict was read, dozens of Mr. Depp’s fans gathered outside the courthouse erupted in cheers and began chanting “Johnny, Johnny.” They mobbed his lawyers when they came out.
Throughout the proceedings, fans — overwhelmingly on Mr. Depp’s side — lined up overnight for coveted courtroom seats. Spectators who couldn’t get in gathered on the street to cheer Mr. Depp and jeer Ms. Heard whenever they appeared outside.
In some ways, the trial was a replay of a lawsuit Mr. Depp filed in the United Kingdom against a British tabloid after he was described as a “wife beater.” The judge in that case ruled in the newspaper’s favor after finding that Ms. Heard was telling the truth in her descriptions of abuse.
In the Virginia case, Mr. Depp had to prove not only that he never assaulted Ms. Heard, but also that Ms. Heard’s article — which focused primarily on public policy related to domestic violence — defamed him. He also had to prove that Ms. Heard wrote the article with actual malice. And to claim damages, he had to prove that her article caused the damage to his reputation as opposed to any number of articles before and after Ms. Heard’s piece that detailed the allegations against him.
The case captivated millions through its gavel-togavel television coverage, including impassioned followers on social media who dissected everything from the actors’ mannerisms to the possible symbolism of what they were wearing. Both performers emerge from the trial with reputations in tatters and unclear prospects for their careers.