The much-talked-about Johnny Depp Vs. Amber Heard defamation case has finally came to an end. A Virginia jury on Wednesday (1 June 22022) ruled that actor Amber Heard defamed ex-husband Johnny Depp in a publicly watched six-week trial that featured explicit and graphic evidences and testimonies from both parties detailing the former Hollywood couple’s toxic relationship. Johnny Depp's ex-wife Amber Heard had defamed him in an op-ed she had written back in 2018. The 58 year old Pirates of the Caribbean star sued his ex-wife in turn for $50 million and argued that she defamed him when she called herself “a public figure representing domestic abuse” in a newspaper opinion piece.
The jury at the Fairfax County Court in Virginia, US, awarded Depp with $10 million in compensatory damages and $5 million in punitive damages. However, the state law caps the amount for punitive damages at $350,000, meaning Depp was awarded a total of $10.35 million. Soon after winning against Amber Heard, Johnny Depp officially released a statement on his Instagram account, from which an excerpt of it read, "Six years ago, my life, the life of my children, the lives of those closest to me, and also, the lives of the people who for many, many years have supported and believed in me were forever changed. All in the blink of an eye."
The jury also ruled in favor of Heard in some aspects of her counter-suit against Depp and therefore awarded her $2 million in damages. After the verdict, Amber Heard said that she was “heartbroken". She released her own statement on her official Twitter handle. An excerpt from it read, “I believe Johnny's attorneys succeeded in getting the jury to overlook the key issue of Freedom of Speech and ignore evidence that was so conclusive that we won in the UK."
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— Amber Heard (@realamberheard) June 1, 2022