Actors Johnny Depp and Amber Heard have settled their defamation lawsuits following a high-profile trial earlier this 12 months in which the previous couple accused one another of bodily and verbal abuse.
Heard introduced the settlement on Monday (Dec 19) on social media.
Both sides had filed appeals of varied points of the jury’s verdicts in June. The seven-person civil jury had awarded Depp US$10mil (RM44.37mil) in damages, but additionally awarded US$2mil (RM8.86mil) to Heard.
Depp’s camp mentioned the deal features a US$1mil (RM4.43mil) fee from her to him to settle all monetary claims.
Depp’s attorneys mentioned he’ll donate that cash to charity.
“We are happy to formally shut the door on this painful chapter for Mr Depp, who made clear all through this course of that his precedence was about bringing the truth to gentle.
“The jury’s unanimous determination and the ensuing judgement in Mr Depp’s favour towards Ms Heard stay totally in place,” Depp’s attorneys, Benjamin Chew and Camille Vazquez, mentioned.
The seven-person civil jury awarded Johnny Depp $10mil (RM44.38mil) in damages after he gained the defamation swimsuit.
Both sides argued to a jury in Fairfax County Circuit Court that the opposite had defamed them. Depp mentioned he was libelled by Heard when she wrote a 2018 op-ed piece in The Washington Post describing herself as “a public determine representing home abuse”.
Depp’s attorneys mentioned he was defamed by the article although it by no means talked about his title as a result of, they argued, it clearly referenced abuse allegations Heard had made towards Depp throughout divorce proceedings.
Heard, then again, mentioned she was defamed by Depp when one among his attorneys known as her abuse allegations a “hoax”.
In an Instagram publish on Monday (Dec 19), Heard mentioned the choice to settle was troublesome.
“I by no means selected this,” she wrote. “I defended my truth and in doing so my life as I knew it was destroyed. The vilification I’ve confronted on social media is an amplified model of the methods in which ladies are re-victimised after they come ahead.”
The trial stretched over a number of months and grew to become one thing of a cultural phenomenon as hundreds of thousands of Americans watched the televised proceedings.
Ostensibly a defamation case, the trial regularly devolved into ugly mudslinging as each Depp and Heard took the stand over a number of days denying one another’s abuse allegations and accusing one another of horrible behaviour throughout their transient marriage.
At the courthouse and throughout the nation, Depp’s supporters backed him fervently, and Heard was routinely mocked as she detailed allegations of bodily, emotional and sexual abuse.
The ruling on the Virginia court docket in Depp’s favor got here after a choose in Britain dominated towards Depp in a libel swimsuit he introduced there towards a British tabloid.
The choose in that 2020 case concluded that Heard had certainly been topic to abuse at Depp’s fingers on a number of events. – AP
