Johnny Depp has emerged victorious from his defamation trial towards ex-wife Amber Heard, after a jury dominated in his favor.
Depp, 58, filed a $50 million lawsuit towards Heard, 36, over an op-ed printed by The Washington Publish in 2018, during which the Aquaman star acknowledged that she was a home abuse survivor.
The jury awarded Depp $10 million in compensatory damages and $5 million in punitive damages. The choose adjusted the punitive damages to $350,000, as Virginia legislation limits punitive damages.
Heard didn't identify Depp within the article, however his attorneys have argued that it was apparent she was referring to the actor. Heard had countersued for $100 million. The jury awarded Heard $2 million in compensatory damages in her countersuit for nuisance.
The trial proved to be a hard-fought battle on each side, with the display screen stars hurling a number of allegations at each other, together with drug and alcohol use, fiery confrontations, and even a declare that Heard defecated on the couple's mattress.
Depp and Heard had additionally accused each other of home abuse whereas in court docket. Each have denied the allegations made towards them.
Movie star witnesses have been additionally drafted in to testify, together with two of Depp's exes: actress Ellen Barkin and supermodel Kate Moss, who denied a long-circulated rumor that the actor violently attacked her whereas they have been relationship within the Nineteen Nineties.
Forward of the decision, Decide Penney Azcarate and Heard and Depp's attorneys arrived in court docket to listen to the reply to a query posed by the jury. They needed to know in the event that they have been making their choice on the "assertion" being the headline of Heard's op-ed, or the content material of the article.
"Does query quantity three, 'the assertion is fake,' pertain to the headline? 'I Spoke Up In opposition to Sexual Violence and Confronted Our Tradition's Wrath,' or does it pertain to the content material of the assertion? The whole lot written the op-ed?" Azcarate learn aloud to the courtroom. She confirmed that the "title is the assertion."
Throughout the six weeks of televised proceedings, Depp argued that Heard's claims had negatively impacted his profession.
Heard, in the meantime, acknowledged that Depp's former legal professional Adam Waldman, sparked relentless backlash when he publicly accused her a number of years in the past of creating pretend sexual assault allegations and conspiring to create an "abuse hoax."
The display screen star stated she felt "harassed, humiliated, threatened each single day."
"Even simply strolling into this courtroom, sitting right here in entrance of the world," Heard stated, "having the worst components of my life, issues I've lived by means of, used to humiliate me. Folks need to kill me."
"Folks need to put my child within the microwave, and so they inform me that," she continued. "Johnny…promised me that if I ever left him, he'd make me consider him each single day that I stay."
Heard additionally denied she was snickering on the stand, saying: "I am not sitting on this courtroom laughing, smiling and making snide jokes. I am not. That is horrible.
"That is painful, and that is humiliating for any human being to undergo. Maybe it is easy to neglect that, however I am a human being."
She added: "I hope nobody ever has to undergo one thing like this."
Heard, whose divorce from Depp was finalized in January 2017, added on the time that she had hoped to reclaim her voice after the trial.
"Johnny has taken sufficient of my voice," she stated. "I've the proper to inform my story, I've the proper to say what occurred to me, I've the proper to my voice and my identify. He took it lengthy sufficient."
For his half, Depp denied ever having struck Heard, or some other girl, as he alleged that his finger was severed again in 2015 when his then-wife hurled a vodka bottle at him.
"She threw the big bottle and it made contact [with the bar] and shattered in every single place," Depp testified. "I actually did not really feel the ache at first. I felt warmth, and I felt as if one thing have been dripping down my hand after which I regarded down and realized the tip of my finger had been severed and I used to be wanting immediately at my bone protruding."
"I do not know what a nervous breakdown looks like, however that is most likely the closest I've ever been," the actor added. "I knew in my thoughts and my coronary heart, this isn't life. This isn't life. Nobody ought to need to undergo it."
When requested what he instructed the medical professionals had occurred, Depp stated: "I lied to him. I stated that I had smashed it in these giant accordion doorways," including that he lied as a result of he did not need to disclose that Heard was the one who allegedly prompted the damage.
"I did not need to get her in bother. I attempted to only preserve issues as copacetic and as simple as attainable for everybody," he stated within the Virginia courtroom. "I didn't need to put her identify in that blend."
Depp's courtroom victory comes nearly two years after he misplaced a 2020 libel case towards British tabloid The Solar, which had labeled the actor a "spouse beater" in reference to Heard's allegations of home abuse.
Heard accused Depp of home abuse throughout their divorce proceedings in 2016. The celebrities, who wed in 2015, had their union formally dissolved in January 2017, months after Heard filed for divorce from Depp.
Whereas Depp had repeatedly denied ever having been violent to Heard in the course of the three-week trial in London, the overseeing choose discovered that the U.Ok. publication's claims that the actor was abusive to Heard have been "considerably true."
Depp, who was dropped from the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise in 2018, was "requested to resign" from Incredible Beasts 3 following the 2020 verdict. He was subsequently changed in his position as Gellert Grindelwald by Mads Mikkelsen.
Replace 6/2/22, 3:50 p.m. ET: This story has been up to date to incorporate extra details about the damages that have been awarded.
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