Here's what you need to know about Johnny Depp and Amber Heard’s defamation trial, which begins on Monday
Photo-Illustration: Vulture; Photos by Getty Images On Monday, seven years after Amber Heard first accused Johnny Depp of assaulting her, Heard, 35, and Depp, 58, will come face-to-face with each other in a Virginia courtroom over allegations that Heard defamed Depp; he is suing her for $50 million over a 2018 Washington Post op-ed she wrote titled “Opinion: Amber Heard: I spoke up against sexual violence — and faced our culture’s wrath. That has to change.
Heard’s initial request for a temporary restraining order against Depp was granted, but on the eve of their civil trial over extending the restraining order, Heard and Depp announced they had settled their differences. They released a joint statement that said, “Our relationship was intensely passionate and at times volatile, but always bound by love. Neither party has made false accusations for financial gain. There was never any intent of physical or emotional harm.
Despite the fact that he wasn’t personally named in the op-ed, Depp filed a $50 million defamation lawsuit against Heard in Virginia over her characterizations in those three sentences. His team alleged that the “op-ed depended on the central premise that Ms. Heard was a domestic abuse victim and that Mr. Depp perpetrated domestic violence against her.
Why is this trial taking place in Virginia? Despite the fact that both Depp and Heard have residences in Los Angeles, Depp’s legal team successfully argued that because the Washington Post is physically published in Virginia, maintains two offices in the state, and has its online edition routed through servers in the state, a Virginia court and jury was the right jurisdiction to hear his defamation case.
“In my opinion, if this case were brought in California, I think it would have been almost dead on arrival,” said Ryan Baker, a Los Angeles litigator who has represented celebrities and entertainment companies in cases ranging from defamation to general business disputes. He added that the extensive litigation in this case has backfired on Depp by bringing to light extremely personal details of the successful actor’s life.
Unlike defamation law in the United States, The Sun needed to show that the statements against Depp were “substantially true.” After extensive testimony submitted from both sides, Justice Andrew Nicol issued a 130-page opinion determining that “the great majority of the alleged assault of Ms. Heard and Mr. Depp has been proved to the civil standard” and that The Sun had shown what it published to be substantially true.
“This trial is going to become a spectacle,” said Emily Baker. “It’s unusual that we see a star-studded witness list in a trial. It’s unlike anything I can really remember when there’s this much celebrity involved, not just from the people involved, but the witness list. And there’s also some horrific text messages between Johnny Depp and Paul Bettany that are just appalling to read the things he says in there in anger.
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