Depp Wins Defamation Case!

Sienna Boucahaaya , Staff Reporter, The Pawprint

The Jury has awarded Depp 15 million USD in damages. Heard also won part of her libel case against Depp over an article she wrote for a privately owned newspaper. The jury awarded Heard with 2 million USD in damages, both found guilty of defamation, after dozens of witnesses testified during the trial, including bodyguards, celebrity friends, makeup artists, agents, doctors, and relatives.

Soon after this verdict came out, Depp released a statement on his Instagram account that 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.”

Heard also released a statement, showing her disappointment at the results of the verdict.”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. I’m sad I lost this case. But I am sadder still that I seem to have lost a right I thought I had as an American to speak freely and openly,” she said,  Heard called it a “setback” for women.

Depp and Heard married in 2015, then divorced in 2017 after she filed a restraining order against him citing domestic violence. Then Depp filed a libel suit in London against the British tabloid The Sun for calling him a “wife-beater.” He lost that case in November 2020.