Depp v. Heard

Depp and Heard first met in 2009, and got married in February 2015.^[2] In May 2016, at an early stage in their divorce proceedings, Heard claimed that Depp had abused her physically, which he denied.^[3] In a separate libel trial in England, in which Depp sued News Group Newspapers Ltd over an article published in The Sun, the presiding judge ruled against Depp, stating, "[T]he great majority of alleged assaults of Ms. Heard by Mr. Depp have been proved to the civil standard."^[4] Several legal experts suggested that Depp had a smaller chance of winning in the US trial compared to the UK trial.^[5][6]


In the Virginia trial, Depp's claims related to a December 2018 op-ed by Heard,^[7] published in The Washington Post. Depp claimed Heard caused new damage to his reputation and career by stating that she had spoken up against "sexual violence" and "faced our culture's wrath"; that "two years ago, [she] became a public figure representing domestic abuse" and "felt the full force of our culture’s wrath for women who speak out"; and that she "had the rare vantage point of seeing, in real time, how institutions protect men accused of abuse". Heard's counterclaims included allegations that Adam Waldman, Depp's former lawyer, had defamed her in statements published in the Daily Mail in 2020. Throughout the trial, Depp's legal team sought to disprove Heard's domestic abuse allegations and to demonstrate that she had been the instigator, rather than the victim, of intimate partner violence. Heard's lawyers defended the op-ed, claiming it to be factual and protected by the First Amendment.


The jury ruled that Heard's op-ed references to "sexual violence" and "domestic abuse" were false and defamed Depp with actual malice and awarded Depp $10 million in compensatory damages and $5 million in punitive damages from Heard,^[8][9] although the court reduced the punitive damages to $350,000 due to a limit imposed by Virginia state law.^[10] They also ruled that Depp had defamed Heard through Waldman, who had falsely alleged that Heard and her friends "roughed up" Depp's penthouse as part of an "ambush, a hoax".^[8][11] They awarded Heard $2 million in compensatory damages and $0 in punitive damages from Depp.^[8][9] Separately, the jury ruled that Waldman's other allegations of Heard's "sexual violence hoax" and "abuse hoax" against Depp had not been proven defamatory.^[9]


After the trial ended, Heard put forth motions to set aside the verdict, but was unsuccessful. Then, both Depp and Heard appealed against the respective verdicts. In December 2022, both parties reached a settlement and dropped their appeals, with Depp's lawyers Benjamin Chew and Camille Vasquez stating that Depp would receive $1 million from Heard.^[12]


The livestreamed trial attracted large numbers of viewers and considerable social media response. The majority of the social media response was sympathetic to Depp and critical of Heard.^[13][14][15] The trial renewed debates around topics relating to domestic violence, the #MeToo movement, and women's rights,^[16][17] although some commentators were more skeptical of the trial's long term implications.^[18][19]