EUnexpectedly, Johnny Depp and his former wife Amber Heard saved themselves a second round in court with descriptions of mutual fights, sexual abuse and drug intoxication. The feuding actors now agreed behind the scenes that Heard would pay Depp $1 million to end the War of the Roses following a defamation lawsuit.
A court in Fairfax, Virginia, sentenced the 36-year-old Texan to more than $10 million in damages to her ex-husband last summer. The jury found it established that Heard’s opinion piece in the Washington Post in late 2018, in which she described herself as a victim of domestic violence, implied assault by Depp and disparaged him.
At the same time, the jury had awarded the “Aquaman” actress two million dollars from the fifty-nine year old. They interpreted the allegation by Depp’s former lawyer Adam Waldman that Heard fabricated alleged beatings of her husband and was guilty of “abuse fraud” as defamation of the actress. In addition to Depp, Heard then submitted an appeal.
As Heard wrote on Instagram on Monday, the agreement with Depp was “a very difficult decision”. “I defended my truth and in the process destroyed the life I knew,” the actress shared. In her post, she also hit out at thousands of her ex-husband’s fans who slammed her on social media during the trial. “The degradation shows how women are victimized again when they don’t hide.”
Depp closes “sad chapter of his life”.
Depp, who announced through a spokesman that he wanted to donate the million to his former wife, was similarly unforgiving despite the withdrawn appeals. Through his lawyers Benjamin Chew and Camille Vasquez, the Golden Globe winner announced on Monday that he had closed a “sad chapter in his life”. “The unanimous decision of the jury and the following verdict in favor of Mr. Depp and against Ms. Heard remain in place,” the lawyers said.
Hollywood’s once loveliest couple became romantically involved in 2009 while filming Bruce Robinson’s The Rum Diary. Fifteen months after marrying in Los Angeles and celebrating on Depp’s Caribbean island of Little Halls Pond Cay, Heard filed for divorce in May 2016. She allegedly appeared at the court hearing in Los Angeles, where she also obtained a restraining order against the “Pirates of the Caribbean” actor, with skin abrasions hidden under make-up.
