Johnny Depp Wins Defamation Case Against Amber Heard
The jury concluded that Heard defamed her ex in a 2018 Washington Post op-ed about sexual violence and ordered her to pay $15 million in damages.
Celebrities

The verdict is in: Amber Heard indeed defamed her ex-husband, Johnny Depp with her 2018 Washington Post op-ed alleging domestic violence. On Wednesday afternoon, after just two and a half days of deliberation, a Fairfax County, Virginia, jury concluded that Heard wrote false statements about Depp, that she deliberately wrote them to damage him, and that she did so with malice. The jury ordered Heard to pay Depp $10 million in compensatory damages and $5 million in punitive, while Depp was ordered to pay Heard $2 million in compensatory damages only.
The $2 million awarded to Heard was the jury ruling in favor to her claims that Depp’s lawyer, Adam Waldman, had defamed her by calling her abuse allegations a “hoax.”
Judge Penney Azcarate later decreed that, as per Virginia state law, the punitive damages awarded were cut down to $350,000, as that’s the cap on what an injured person suing for punitive damages can recover.
In a statement to Jezebel after the verdict was announced, Heard said:
“The disappointment I feel today is beyond words. I’m heartbroken that the mountain of evidence still was not enough to stand up to the disproportionate power, influence, and sway of my ex-husband. I’m even more disappointed with what this verdict means for other women. It is a setback. It sets back the clock to a time when a woman who spoke up and spoke out could be publicly shamed and humiliated. It sets back the idea that violence against women is to be taken seriously. 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.”
A statement issued by Depp on Instagram called the claims levied at him by the media “false, very serious and criminal.” He thanked the jury for giving him his “life back” and insisted that he brought about this case “to reveal the truth, regardless of the outcome.”