The verdict has finally been delivered! After several intense weeks during which Johnny Depp and Amber Heard fought in the court of Fairfax, in the state of Virginia, the jurors finally rendered their decision this Wednesday, June 1, 2022.
From the first moments of this long-awaited day, the judge announced that a unanimous verdict had been reached by the jury and asked its members to withdraw to rule on the amount of damages to be paid. Once the hearing resumed, the reading of the verdict quickly turned in favor of Johnny Depp. The actor obtained a huge victory since the court ruled that he had indeed been defamed. He was awarded $15 million in damages reports TMZ.
The seven jurors answered in the affirmative to the question of whether the title and two passages of a tribune, published in 2018 by Amber Heard, contained defamatory remarks with regard to Johnny Depp, according to the reading of their decision . At the same time, however, the actor was also ordered to pay his ex-wife $2 million, also for defamation.
As a reminder, the actor was claiming 50 million dollars in damages from his ex-wife, considering that his remarks in the column published in the washington post in 2018 had destroyed his career and his reputation. In it, she accused Johnny Depp of domestic violence, without naming him directly.
Since April 11, 2022, the jury has heard dozens of hours of testimonies and audio or video recordings which have revealed the scabrous details of their life together, far from the glamor of Hollywood, in particular an anecdote of turd found in the marital bed.
Amber Heard notably told that Johnny Depp was becoming a “freak” under the influence of an explosive cocktail of drugs and alcohol and was not undergoing rehab but also that he allegedly raped her using a bottle of alcohol in March 2015, a month after their marriage, in Australia where the actor was filming episode 5 of Pirates of the Caribbean. That day, Johnny Depp had the end of a finger severed and was hospitalized. He claims it’s because of the glare from a bottle thrown by Amber Heard. She says he hurt himself.
After leaving him in May 2016, she says she became the target of a social media smear campaign that wiped out her career. “Harassed“Since the beginning of the trial, broadcast live on television, she says she has received”thousands” of death threats. Johnny Depp can count on the support of hundreds of fans who cheered him every day in court.
In the past, the comedian lost a first defamation lawsuit in London in 2020, against the tabloid The Sun who called him “abusive husband“. The two actors, who divorced in 2017, each claim to have lost between 40 and 50 million dollars in fees since the publication of the tribune.
The Life of Amber Heard”has become hell” since the start of the trial, said his lawyer, Elaine Bredehoft. She asked the jurors – five men and two women – to dismiss Johnny Depp’s complaint for the “let her continue her life and raise her child“. For his part, the 58-year-old actor also wants “resume the course of one’s life“, had previously said his lawyer, Camille Vasquez.