Amber Heard settles defamation case with Johnny Depp
Heard had previously been ordered to pay more than $10m in damages to Depp, while he was ordered to pay her $2m
Amber Heard has agreed to a legal settlement with her ex-husband and fellow actor Johnny Depp, who sued her for defamation after she suggested he abused her in a 2018 Washington Post op-ed.
Heard, 36, had previously been ordered pay more than $10m in damages to Depp, 56. Depp, meanwhile, was ordered to pay Heard $2m after she filed a countersuit accusing him of defamation after his lawyer, Adam Waldman, called her abuse claims a “hoax”.
Heard initially appealed the ruling ordering her to pay but has since dropped that effort. The terms of the settlement she announced on Monday puts an end to any further litigation between Heard and Depp over their claims against each other for now, but the terms of the agreement were not immediately publicized.
In an Instagram post that she shared on Monday morning, Heard wrote that agreeing to the settlement was “a very difficult decision”.
“It’s important for me to say that I never chose this,” the post read. “I defended my truth and in doing so my life as I knew it was destroyed. The vilification I have faced on social media is an amplified version of the ways in which women are re-victimized when they come forward.
“Now I finally have an opportunity to emancipate myself from something I attempted to leave over six years ago and on terms I can agree to. I have made no admission. This is not an act of concession. There are no restrictions or gags with respect to my voice moving forward.”
News of the settlement comes after a public, months-long legal battle saw Heard and Depp fight for support in the court of public opinion as well as litigate their difference in an actual courtroom in Fairfax county, Virginia. On social media, support for Depp was overwhelming, as evidenced by the wide sharing of videos and posts aiming to impugn – if not outright discredit – Heard’s accounts of domestic violence at the hands of Depp.
Separately, in the UK, Depp lost a libel case in 2020 against the Sun after he sued the newspaper for publishing an article calling him a “wife beater”.
The judge in that case found the article was “substantially true”, and some observers thought that initial victory for Heard might carry over into the case she and Depp waged each other in the US. But the split ruling that followed the trial of the case in Virginia was substantially more burdensome economically for Heard.
Depp and Heard were married for two years from 2015 to 2017.
How did Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt’s divorce get so messy?
Nearly seven years after they filed, the Brangelina split is on track to rack up the most expensive Hollywood divorce legal fees of all time.
Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie announced their split in 2016, just two years after they tied the knot in Miraval, southeast France, where they also co-owned a successful vineyard (but we’ll get to that). Since then, there’s been allegations of abuse, claims of forced NDAs, a revolving door of legal professionals and more than a little crying over spilt rosé. Most recently, Jolie’s legal team has accused Pitt of acting like a “petulant child” over the profits of their winery, saying he “deals in illusions, not dirt and grapes.”
Brangelina had been wrangling over the split through legal proceedings in California privately and quietly, but in February 2017, Angelina spoke out about the divorce for the first time saying “we will get through this time and hopefully be a stronger family for it”.
It’s taken nearly seven years and millions in legal fees to get to this point and the pair have only recently started splitting up their combined assets, including the French vineyard and estate, Chateau Miraval, they bought together for $60 million. In an extra twist, Brad is suing his ex-wife for, according to the lawsuit, selling her stake in their co-owned vineyard to a Luxembourg-based spirits manufacturer controlled by Russian oligarch Yuri Shefler without his knowledge.
As for right now, Angelina is based in Los Angeles, but appears keen to eventually move away. “I would love to live abroad and will do so as soon as my children are 18,” She told Harper’s Bazaar. “Right now I’m having to base where their father chooses to live.”
Brad, however, has begun his public wellness journey, marked by his new cashmere company, genderfluid skincare line and foray into sculpture work.
Brangelina’s divorce could be fought for many more years, racking up millions more in legal fees.
