Amber Heard‘s $2 million dollar award from the infamous Johnny Depp defamation trial against her isn’t going to stand, according to her ex-husband. The Pirates of the Caribbean star, 59, reportedly filed an appellate brief on Wednesday, November 2, calling the $2 million dollar judgement against him “erroneous” and entirely calling it into question. HollywoodLife reached out to the Edward Scissorhands star’s reps and attorneys for comment but had not received a response by the time of publication.
Per Law & Crime, documents detailed the actor’s reasons for appealing the part of the judgement that found that one of his lawyers, Adam Waldman, defamed his stunning ex-wife, 36, on “one” occasion. It also stated that the one instance is “solely” the reason for the filing. “The judgment in Ms. Heard’s favor on that lone statement is erroneous,” the docs state. They also claim that the Pineapple Express actress’s case “was fatally flawed.”
Johnny previously officially filed an appeal on Friday, July 22, after Amber filed an appeal the $15 million defamation judgement against her. The findings were based on a 2018 opinion piece she published in The Washington Times, about her alleged experiences with domestic violence. The article in question never named him. The former couple’s defamation case, held over the months of April and May, gripped the nation and ultimately ended with the wildly popular Johnny winning the lion’s share of judgements against Amber in a chaotic televised case from Fairfax, Virginia.
It’s worth noting that Amber had reportedly previously declined a whopping $16 million settlement offer in her 2016 divorce from the Charlie & The Chocolate Factory star. According to The Daily Beast, documents unearthed after the trial, that were notably rejected for the purposes of the 2022 trial, reveal that Amber refused to accept an offered multimillion dollar payout at the end of her marriage. “Amazingly true to your word, that this is not about the money,” an email from her lawyer reportedly read.
Under California law, she would have been entitled to half his earnings from Pirates Of The Carribbean 5, which was filmed during their marriage. The court docs revealed by The Daily Beast showed estimated earnings of $33 million for the movie. Johnny previously lost a 2020 libel case against the UK Sun, which famously labeled the actor a “wife beater.” The verdict resulted in the loss of his role in the Fantastic Beasts franchise.
On Nov 2, 2020, UK Justice Andrew Nicol ruled that the publisher, News Group, “have shown that what they published … was substantially true. I have found that the great majority of alleged assaults of Ms. Heard by Mr. Depp have been proved to the civil standard.”