Johnny Depp Jury Finds That Amber Heard Defamed Him in Op-Ed

The jury in Virginia found that Ms. Heard had damaged her ex-husband’s reputation with an op-ed in which she identified herself as a “public figure representing domestic abuse.”

The libel case that pitted Johnny Depp against his ex-wife Amber Heard lasted six weeks.Credit...Photographs by Steve Helber/Associated Press

By Julia Jacobs and Adam Bednar
June 1, 2022
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For six weeks, the defamation case that the actor Johnny Depp filed against his ex-wife Amber Heard transfixed the nation, offering a rare instance of high-profile #MeToo charges and countercharges, including lurid accusations of physical abuse, being hashed out in the public spotlight of a courtroom.

On Wednesday, the seven-person jury in Fairfax, Va., found that Mr. Depp had been defamed by Ms. Heard when she described herself in a 2018 op-ed in The Washington Post as a “public figure representing domestic abuse.” Mr. Depp was awarded more than $10 million in damages.

During the trial Mr. Depp had fiercely denied Ms. Heard’s accusations that he had subjected her to repeated physical abuse that included punching and head-butting and several instances of sexual assault. In a statement after the verdict Mr. Depp thanked the jury, saying that it “gave me my life back.”

Ms. Heard, who was in the courtroom as the verdict was read, said in a statement afterward that she was disappointed “beyond words” by their finding.

“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,” she said.

Ms. Heard did not seem buoyed by the fact that the jury also awarded her $2 million in damages, agreeing that she had been defamed in one instance by a lawyer for Mr. Depp. A spokeswoman for Ms. Heard, Alafair Hall, said she planned to appeal.

Such cases are often settled out of court, in part to avoid public scrutiny. The bitter charges and embarrassing details in this case were aired not only in open court, but also before cameras that beamed every accusation onto televisions and livestreams, where they were turned into memes and debated on social media.

The 2018 op-ed that Ms. Heard wrote never mentioned Mr. Depp by name, but he argued that it clearly referred to their marriage, which began in 2015 and fell apart just over a year later, and that it was false. (Early drafts of it were prepared by the American Civil Liberties Union, where Ms. Heard was an ambassador with a focus on women’s rights and gender-based violence.)



The jury agreed, and found that it contained several statements that were false, and were made with actual malice.

Our Coverage of the Johnny Depp-Amber Heard Trial
A trial between the formerly married actors became a fierce battleground over the truth about their relationship. What to Know: Johnny Depp and Amber Heard sued each other with competing defamation claims, amid mutual accusations of domestic abuse.
The Verdict: The jury ruled that Mr. Depp was defamed by Ms. Heard in her op-ed, but also that she had been defamed by one of his lawyers.
Possible Effects: Lawyers say that the outcome of the trial could embolden others accused of abuse or misconduct to try their luck with juries.
The Media’s Role: As the trial demonstrates, by sharing claims of sexual abuse the press assumes the risks that come with antagonizing the rich, powerful and litigious.

Ms. Heard countersued, claiming that she had been defamed in 2020 when one of Mr. Depp’s lawyers at the time had dismissed her accusations as a “hoax” in statements to a British tabloid. The jury found that Mr. Depp had defamed Ms. Heard in one instance, when the lawyer accused her of damaging the couple’s penthouse and blaming it on Mr. Depp.

The verdict came as a surprise to several legal observers, who noted that a judge in Britain had ruled two years ago that there was evidence that Mr. Depp had repeatedly assaulted Ms. Heard. That ruling came in a libel suit that Mr. Depp had filed after The Sun, a British tabloid newspaper, called him a “wife beater” in a headline. The judge in that case had ruled that the defendants had shown that what they published was “substantially true.”

Ms. Heard, 36, maintained throughout the trial that everything written in the op-ed was true.


The combination of star power, sensational details and cameras in the courtroom turned the trial into an internet obsession. Memes and posts attacking Ms. Heard, some created by superfans of Mr. Depp, proliferated online. Ms. Heard testified that she had received thousands of death threats since the start of the trial and called the online mockery “agonizing.”

Sometimes breaking into sobs on the stand, Ms. Heard testified about more than a dozen times that, she said, Mr. Depp was violent toward her. In a key incident in Australia in 2015, Ms. Heard said, Mr. Depp became “belligerent” after taking the drug MDMA and attacked her, grabbing her by the neck and, at one point, sexually assaulting her with an object that Ms. Heard later determined to be a bottle.

“I’m looking in his eyes and I don’t see him anymore,” Ms. Heard testified. “I’ve never been so scared in my life.”

The proceedings in Virginia often became a stage where the couple, and many of their associates, recounted some of the most intimate, embarrassing and often contradictory accounts of their relationship.

Texts from Mr. Depp referred to Ms. Heard using insults and obscenities like “worthless hooker.” An audio recording captured Ms. Heard calling Mr. Depp “washed up” and a “joke” and other recorded arguments in which both seem to agree that they were violent with each other.

Mr. Depp’s drug use and past addiction to opioids were brought up frequently, but his lawyers argued that he never claimed to be a saint — just that he wasn’t an abuser.