After three days of deliberation by the jury, Johnny Depp won his defamation case against ex-wife Amber Heard, which also gave Amber a partial victory in her countersuit.
According to Johnny Depp’s attorneys, Camille Vasquez and Ben Chew, now that his reputation has been restored, the actor is contemplating waiving Amber Heard’s $8 million judgment.
They both revealed this in a TV interview where they talked about how thrilled they were to have won the lawsuit and how Johnny hadn’t smiled like this in six years since his difficulties with Heard began.
They also mentioned that he would waive the $8 million judgment Amber was ordered to pay him because her lawyers said she couldn’t afford it and that they were planning to appeal.
“This was never about money for Mr. Depp,” Camille Vasquez and Ben Chew remarked.
“This was about restoring his reputation and he’s done that. We have to be careful what we say but this was about Mr. Depp’s reputation, but that was what it was about for him.”
After a jury determined that Heard did defame him in a 2018 article she wrote on her domestic abuse experience, the Pirates of the Caribbean actor was given a total of $15 million in compensatory and punitive damages.
Depp initially sued his ex-wife for fifty million dollars, claiming she implied he assaulted her in a 2018 Washington Post op-ed, while Heard counter-sued for a hundred million dollars.
With the ruling in his favor, the jury agreed to give the actor ten million dollars in compensatory damages and another five million dollars in punitive damages, which were capped at $350,000 per Virginia state law. Johnny Depp’s total was reduced to over eight million dollars when Heard was awarded two million dollars in compensatory damages.