Johnny Depp, Amber Heard defamation suit: Jury finds Heard, Depp both liable

After six weeks of accusations in the “he-said, she-said” defamation trial between Johnny Depp and ex-wife Amber Heard, a jury has decided who, if anyone, is deserving of a payout.

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Depp had sued Heard for $50 million, accusing her of libeling him in a 2018 opinion piece she wrote for The Washington Post, The Associated Press reported. She had countersued for $100 million.

Update 4:01 p.m. EDT June 1: Depp, who was not in the courtroom at the time of the verdict, has responded to the jury’s decision via Instagram. He said, “the jury gave me my life back.”

Heard responded to the decision via Twitter, saying, “I’m even more disappointed with what this verdict means for other women. It’s a setback. It sets back the clock to a time when a woman who spoke up and spoke out could be publicly humiliated. It sets back the idea that violence against women is to be taken seriously,” the AP reported.

Update 3:25 p.m. EDT June 1: The jury ruled in favor of the counterclaim by Heard that Depp’s attorney called her abuse allegations a hoax. The jury awarded Heard $2 million in damages.

Update 3:20 p.m. EDT June 1: The jury found Amber Heard liable for a defamatory statement, ruling in favor of Depp. The jury awarded Depp a total of $15 million in damages. The judge lowered the amount of the punitive damages to $350,000, the state’s legal limit, making the total damages $10.4 million.

Update 2:20 p.m. EDT June 1: Depp will not be in the courtroom when the verdict is read. Representatives of the actor said he had “previously scheduled work commitments” and he “will be watching from the United Kingdom,” CNN reported. Depp performed with musician and friend Jeff Beck over the weekend.

Heard is expected to be in the courtroom for the verdict.

Update 1:37 p.m. EDT June 1: The jury has reached a verdict, the AP reported. The verdicts are expected to be read in the Fairfax County, Virginia, courtroom at 3 p.m. EDT.

The seven-person civil jury had to reach a unanimous decision in the case. They deliberated for about 12 hours over three days, the AP reported.

Original report: She described herself as “a public figure representing domestic abuse,” but did not name Depp in the article, CNN reported.

Heard is countersuing her former husband for $100 million after his lawyers called her claims a hoax, the AP reported.

Depp and Heard both allege that the other destroyed their career.

Heard claimed Depp physically or sexually assaulted her more than a dozen times in their short marriage. She also said he was verbally abusive, CNN reported. Depp said he didn’t hit his wife, but that she was actually the one who hit him, the AP reported.

A clinical psychologist who worked with Depp and Heard in 2015 called their relationship one of “mutual abuse,” CNN reported.

The former couple met in 2009 while filming “The Rum Diary” and then got married in 2015 before filing for divorce a year later, CNN reported.

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