Amber Heard settles defamation case with ex Johnny Depp

AFP
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Washington (AFP) โ€“ Actress Amber Heard announced Monday that she had made the โ€œvery difficultโ€ decision to settle the multimillion dollar defamation case brought by her former husband Johnny Depp.

Heard, in a post on Instagram, did not reveal the terms of the settlement, which comes after a Virginia jury ordered her to pay $10 million to the โ€œPirates of the Caribbeanโ€ star.

The entertainment website TMZ, citing sources with direct knowledge, said the settlement calls for the 36-year-old Heard to pay $1 million to her 59-year-old former husband.

Heard, who had a starring role in the movie โ€œAquaman,โ€ said she was dropping her appeal of the damages awarded by the jury and settling the case because she โ€œsimply cannot go throughโ€ another trial.

โ€œAfter a great deal of deliberation I have made a very difficult decision to settle the defamation case,โ€ she said.

โ€œI make this decision having lost faith in the American legal system, where my unprotected testimony served as entertainment and social media fodder,โ€ she said.

โ€œNow 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,โ€ she said. โ€œI have made no admission. This is not an act of concession.โ€

The jury found Depp and Heard liable for defamation โ€” but sided more strongly with the โ€œPiratesโ€ star following an intense six-week trial riding on bitterly contested allegations of domestic abuse.

The jury awarded $10.35 million in damages to Depp.

Heard, who had countersued, was awarded $2 million.

โ€˜Defended my truthโ€™

Depp sued Heard over an op-ed she wrote for The Washington Post in December 2018 in which she described herself as a โ€œpublic figure representing domestic abuse.โ€

The Texas-born Heard did not name Depp in the piece, but he sued her for implying he was a domestic abuser and sought $50 million in damages.

Heard countersued for $100 million, saying she was defamed by statements made by Deppโ€™s lawyer, Adam Waldman, who told the Daily Mail her abuse claims were a โ€œhoax.โ€

The case, live streamed to millions, featured lurid and intimate details about the Hollywood celebritiesโ€™ private lives.

Heardโ€™s lawyers said following the trial that the actress did not have the resources to pay Depp the $10 million in damages.

In her Instagram post, Heard said she โ€œdefended my truth and in doing so my life as I knew it was destroyed.

โ€œThe vilification I have faced on social media is an amplified version of the ways in which women are revictimised whenย they come forward,โ€ she said.

โ€œI was exposed to a type of humiliation that I simply cannot relive.

โ€œEven if my US appeal is successful, the best outcome would be a retrial where a new jury would have to consider the evidence again,โ€ she said. โ€œI simply cannot go through that for a third time.โ€