Johnny Depp and Amber Heard will face battle in a $50 million (at least) libel trial in Virginia.
A $50 million (or more) libel trial involving stars Johnny Depp and Amber Heard is due to begin Monday in Fairfax County, Virginia, just outside of Washington, D.C., six years after their ugly divorce.
If you’d want to call it Depp vs. Heard: Part 2, you’ll need to include Paul Bettany (for Depp), James Franco (for Heard), and even billionaire Elon Musk in the mix via video (for Heard).
In Johnny Depp’s lawsuit against Amber Heard, what is the foundation for his claim? Actor Johnny Depp is suing Washington Post opinion editor Amber Heard for $50 million, alleging that she defamed him in a December 2018 opinion piece (which is printed in Fairfax County). Claims of domestic violence made during their tumultuous 2016 divorce procedures were made in her article..
Because their divorce was settled out of court in the middle of a media frenzy, Heard was never able to establish she was assaulted. They also published a joint settlement statement, which said in part: “For the sake of financial advantage, neither side has fabricated false charges. There was never any intention of harming somebody physically or emotionally. Amber wishes Johnny all the best in the future.”
Johnny Depp and Amber Heard will face battle in a $50 million (at least) libel trial in Virginia.
(Depp agreed to pay her $7 million, which she vowed to contribute to charity, as part of the settlement.) It’s also a point of debate amongst them as to whether she did or not.)
Heard waited more than two years to write her piece, which coincided with the 2017 MeToo movement. without mentioning Depp’s name, the editorial gave the idea that she was abused because she was pummelling during her tumultuous 15-month marriage to him.
In March 2019, Depp and his former lawyer filed a lawsuit in response to Heard’s accusations. According to Depp’s lawsuit, “Ms. Heard is not a victim of domestic violence; she is a perpetrator.”
Heard countersued Depp for $100 million, claiming she was defamed by Depp’s former lawyer’s public remarks, which included the terms “false” and “hoax.”
Both cases will be heard by Chief Judge Penney Azcarate of the Fairfax County Circuit Court in this trial. The judge, a former Marine, has scheduled the trial for up to six weeks — unless the case is resolved at the last minute on the courthouse steps, or even during the trial, as is typical in Virginia.
The judge also permitted the use of a video camera in the courtroom, which is thought to be a first in Fairfax County, Virginia’s biggest and most populous county. The trial will be broadcast live on Court TV and Court TV’s internet website starting once the jury is chosen, which is expected on Tuesday.
The courtroom will be open to the public, although seating will be restricted. Reporters are permitted to attend the trial in person, but only with pen and paper – no electronic devices are permitted.
In case movie buffs were planning on staking out the courthouse, don’t: the judge’s order states that no overnight “camping” will be permitted on courthouse grounds, and that “further measures” will be taken if foot or vehicle traffic throughout the judicial complex becomes excessive as a result of the trial.
Johnny Depp and Amber Heard will face battle in a $50 million (at least) libel trial in Virginia.
Has Johnny Depp already filed a libel suit?
If this all seems faintly familiar, that’s because it is, courtesy to Depp vs. Heard, Part I. In the summer of 2020, Depp sued the publisher of The Sun tabloid for defaming him, and the case was heard in a London courtroom (by labelling him a “wife beater” without adding “accused”). Heard was the star witness for the tabloid.
Depp came up short. The British court found that The Sun had not libelled Depp because “the large bulk” of Heard’s accusations that Depp routinely attacked her before and throughout their marriage could be “proven to the civil standard” after a three-week trial that was both risible and horrifying in equal measure. Depp’s efforts to overturn the ruling were unsuccessful.
Since then, his immensely successful film career has suffered a knock, particularly as the lead of the “Pirates of the Caribbean” franchise: He was asked to relinquish his leading position in “Fantastic Beasts” following the London trial, among other things, due to “recent events,” and he subsequently regretted being “boycotted” by Hollywood in an interview with London’s Sunday Times (part of the same Rupert Murdoch-owned publishing group as The Sun).
Heard’s career hasn’t been impacted as much – she’ll be in a second “Aquaman” picture next year – but it was never as large as Depp’s.
The tabloid-style testimony of their violent, screeching rows, unending use of drugs and alcohol, wild punches and flying projectiles, wrecked rooms, and a lopped off fingertip left both Depp and Heard damaged in the public relations sense.
The English law on libel, slander, and press freedom differs somewhat from Virginia law, and the English case had a person suing a publisher rather than two irate ex-spouses.
(Because of Supreme Court precedent, celebrities in the United States have a far tougher time suing the press than they do in the United Kingdom: Depp did not sue The Washington Post, and Heard did not sue any media that reported on the words she objected to.)
Johnny Depp and Amber Heard will face battle in a $50 million (at least) libel trial in Virginia.
One of the reasons Heard mentioned when she sought three times to have Depp’s lawsuit dismissed in Virginia was that he had lost the British case and therefore had no Virginia case.
She was defeated. Judge Azcarate stated her dismissal argument fell short of well-established legal rules regulating when civil lawsuits may be dismissed. “If anything, maintaining English libel judgements in the United States would stifle the market and set a hazardous precedent,” she concluded.
Azcarate, on the other hand, ruled in Heard’s favour last month, agreeing that she may argue to a jury that she should be covered from Depp’s lawsuit since her column on domestic abuse dealt with an issue of public interest and so should be protected under Virginia law. That doesn’t mean Heard is immune from prosecution for what she wrote; it just means she may use the public interest argument in her defence.
The witness lists for both sides include names of those who testified during the London trial. A friend of Depp’s, actor Paul Bettany, is set to testify about text messages he had with Depp about Heard. Franco, a friend, and Musk, a former lover of Heard’s, might be questioned about their friendship.
However, the trial in suburban Washington is anticipated to centre on what Depp and Heard allegedly said and did to one other right before their divorce case burst into headlines in 2016, echoing through Hollywood, the media, and eventually a foreign courtroom.
It all started on May 21, 2016, when Heard claimed Depp assaulted her and struck her in the face with a telephone in their downtown Los Angeles luxury penthouse. She filed for divorce two days later, appeared in court with a prominent bruise on her right cheek, and used the accusation of being assaulted to get a restraining order against Depp, who was at the time on vacation.
Heard’s legal and public relations teams promised reporters that policemen sent to the loft would back her up, but they didn’t. The policemen saw no injuries, and their bodycams revealed the loft wasn’t in disorder. Heard refused to submit a police complaint, so they decided it wasn’t necessary since no crime had happened.
Domestic violence is a felony in both the United States and the United Kingdom, although Depp has yet to be convicted of it in any nation. Instead, he lost a civil complaint in which a publisher had to show a court that the majority of the facts given at the trial permitted the tabloid to name him a “wife abuser” without being fined.
In the Virginia case, the parties must show by a majority of the evidence submitted at the trial that what one of them has said or written about the other amounts to defamation in Virginia.
However, this is a civil case. No one will be found guilty of a crime, regardless of the result.
