The increased, televised court battle finished on Wednesday when a seven-person jury determined that Depp and Heard had defamed one another but sided decisively with Depp. After a six-week trial that included charges and counterclaims of domestic violence, the jury awarded him $10.35 million in damages, compared to Heard’s $2 million.
When asked if Heard will be able to pay up, her attorney, Elaine Bredehoft, said on NBC’s TODAY show, “Oh no, absolutely not.” She added that the “Aquaman” actor wants to fight the conviction and “has some excellent grounds for it.”
Depp at the age of 58 years, appreciated the split judgment in the case as a triumph after losing a libel action against the British tabloid The Sun in London in 2020 for branding him a “wife-beater,” while Heard claimed she was “heartbroken.”
Depp filed Heard in December 2018 for an op-ed she wrote for The Washington Post in which she portrayed herself as a “public figure representing domestic abuse.”
Although Heard did not identify Depp in the article, he filed her for insinuating he was a domestic abuser and wanted $50 million in damages.
Heard, 36, countersued for $100 million, claiming she was defamed by Depp’s lawyer, Adam Waldman, who told the Daily Mail her abuse accusations were just a “hoax.”
According to Bredehoft, Depp’s legal team sought to “demonize” Heard and withheld critical evidence in the trial, preventing jurors from investigating proof of Depp’s abuse allegations.
