Amber Heard settles lawsuit with Johnny Depp, agrees to pay $1million

'Aquaman' star calls the decision "very difficult" and that it followed "a great deal of deliberation."

Actor Amber Heard said in an Instagram post on Monday that she would settle her defamation claims against ex-husband Johnny Depp.

The 'Aquaman' star called the decision to settle with Depp "very difficult" adding that it followed "a great deal of deliberation."

In June, a US jury found that actress Amber Heard had made defamatory claims of abuse against her ex-husband Johnny Depp, and awarded him $15 million in damages.

The seven-member jury in Virginia found that a 2018 article penned by Heard on the "sexual violence" she had suffered was defamatory to Depp, and was written with malicious intent -- making her guilty of libel. The jury also found that Heard was defamed by statements made by Depp's lawyer, Adam Waldman, who told the Daily Mail that her abuse claims were a "hoax," and awarded her $2 million in damages.

Depp originally filed the defamation claim against Heard in March 2019 after she published the op-ed in the Washington Post describing herself as a “public figure representing domestic abuse.” The couple had been married for two years before divorcing in 2017.

Heard later filed an appeal with her lawyer citing “errors” made by the court. However, it appears the “Aquaman” actor has now agreed to withdraw her appeal.

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In a statement announcing the decision, Heard made clear that “There are no restrictions or gags with respect to my voice moving forward” and blasted the U.S. legal system for turning her testimony into “entertainment and social media fodder.”

She also compared her experience of the U.S. legal system to the U.K., where Depp sued British tabloid The Sun in 2020 for calling him a “wife beater” in an article. Heard was a chief witness for The Sun. In that case, the judge called the allegations “substantially true” and found in favor of The Sun.

 

 

 

 

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A post shared by Amber Heard (@amberheard)

"I make this decision have lost faith in the American legal system, where my unprotected testimony served as entertainment and social media fodder," she said.

"When I took before a judge in the UK, I was vindicated by a robust, impartial and fair system, where I was protected from having to give the worst moments of my testimony in front of the worlds media, and where the court found that I was subjected to domestic and sexual violence. In the U.S., however, I exhausted almost all my resources in advance of and during a trial in which I was subject to a courtroom in which abundant, direct evidence that corroborated my testimony was excluded and in which popularity and power mattered more than reason and due process. In the interim I was exposed to a type of humiliation that I simply cannot re-live. Even if my U.S. appeal is successful, the best outcome would be a re-trial where a new jury would have to consider the evidence age. I simply cannot go through that for a third time.

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"I will not be threatened, disheartened, or dissuaded by what happened from speaking the truth. No one can and no one will take that from me. My voice forever remains the most valuable asset I have."

"I’d like to thank my outstanding appellate and original trial teams for their relentless hard work. I want to thank everyone who has supported me and I turn my attention to the growing support that I felt and seen publicly in the months since trial, and the efforts have been made to show solidarity with my story. Any survivor knows that the ability to tell their story often feels like the only relief. I cannot find enough words to tell you the hope your belief in me inspires. Not just for me, but for all of you", she concluded.