Amber Heard agrees to pay Johnny Depp $1 million
Sylvie Claire / December 20, 2022
Actress Amber Heard announced Monday that she has reached an agreement to end the appeal process of the defamation lawsuit against Johnny Depp in the United States, agreeing to pay one million dollars to her ex-husband.
"After much thought I have made the difficult decision to make a deal," the star wrote on Instagram, without specifying the financial terms.
The 36-year-old actress had initially appealed the verdict handed down in June ordering her to pay $10 million to the Pirates of the Caribbean star, who for her part had to pay back $2 million to Heard.
"I made this decision after losing faith in the U.S. court system, in which my public testimony served as entertainment and gave fodder to social networks," the actress added.
Lawyers for Johnny Depp, 59, welcomed the settlement on Monday.
We are pleased to officially close this painful chapter for Mr. Depp, who has made it clear throughout this process that his priority is to get to the truth," said attorneys Benjamin Chew and Camille Vasquez.
"The jury's unanimous decision and resulting judgment in favor of Mr. Depp against Ms. Heard remain in full force," they reiterated.
"The payment of $1 million - which Mr. Depp pledges to donate to charity, which he will in fact do - demonstrates that Ms. Heard recognizes the findings" of the court, they added.
The legal battle between the former spouses stems from an op-ed published by the Washington Post in 2018, in which Amber Heard described herself as "a public figure representing domestic violence," without naming her ex-husband.
Asserting that this text had destroyed his reputation and his career, Johnny Depp, 59, had sued for defamation his ex-wife to obtain 50 million dollars in damages. Amber Heard had counterattacked and asked for the double.
At the end of six weeks of debates, the jurors of the court of Fairfax, in the suburbs of Washington, had concluded that the ex-spouses had mutually defamed, but had estimated that the damages suffered by Johnny Depp were superior.
The trial, ultra-mediatized and broadcast live on television, was followed by millions of viewers around the world and caused an outburst of hostile messages to the actress on social networks.