Amber Heard has formally notified a US court that she intends to challenge the judgment that ordered her to pay $10.35m to her ex-husband Johnny Depp.
In what The Times described as a “bitterly contested trial”, Depp, 59, sued Heard for $50m (£40m) over an article she wrote in The Washington Post in 2018 in which she claimed to be a victim of domestic abuse. Heard, 36, countersued Depp for $100m (£80m) after his lawyer described her allegations as a “hoax”. She was awarded $2m (£1.7m) in damages.
Heard described the verdict as a “setback” for women and called for a retrial earlier this month over “improper juror service”. The request was dismissed by the judge, and now the actor’s lawyers have filed an appeal notice with Fairfax County Circuit Court, Virginia.
The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
SUBSCRIBE & SAVE
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
Join more than 350,000 subscribers and keep yourself informed with a selection of The Week’s most interesting, enlightening and entertaining stories - plus daily puzzles.
Join more than 350,000 subscribers and keep yourself informed with a selection of The Week’s most interesting, enlightening and entertaining stories - plus daily puzzles.
Latest Videos FromThe Week
A spokesperson said Heard’s legal team believed “the court made errors that prevented a just and fair verdict consistent with the first amendment”. She added: “While we realise today’s filing will ignite the Twitter bonfires, there are steps we need to take to ensure both fairness and justice.”
A spokesperson for Depp told E! News: “The jury listened to the extensive evidence presented during the six-week trial and came to a clear and unanimous verdict that the defendant herself defamed Mr. Depp, in multiple instances. We remain confident in our case and that this verdict will stand.”
Even before jurors had returned the original trial’s verdict back in June, attention had already turned to the future of the warring parties and what would come next for Heard.
The ‘court of public opinion’
Hollywood insiders told CNN that, regardless of the verdict in the legal battle between Heard and Depp, the fate of their respective careers would be “decided in the court of public opinion”.
Heard is due to appear in the sequel to Aquaman, which is scheduled for release in 2023. A petition has been signed by more than 4.6 million people to have the actor removed from the movie. “That likely won’t happen,” said CNN, which pointed out that the movie has already been filmed and is in post-production.
In a recent interview, Heard’s Aquaman co-star Dolph Lundgren described the actress as “terrific”. “I had a great experience with her,” The Independent reported. “She’s very kind, nice to the crew, nice to everybody, just down to earth.”
But entertainment agent Darryl Marshak told CNN that he thinks film studios might be less than keen to work with Heard or Depp in the future. “I think Hollywood is a strange place,” he said. “When you air your dirty laundry in front of the machine, the executives, all the people that make the parts move, they sort of recoil from a hot flame.”
Heard ‘fought really hard’ to stay in film sequel
Heard’s talent agent told the court in Fairfax during the libel trial that began in April that her acting career had already been damaged by allegations made by Depp’s former lawyer Adam Waldman, who said in court that she had faked injuries and caused damage to Depp’s LA penthouse.
After the $1bn success of the 2018 film Aquaman, Heard’s career should have had a similar trajectory to that of her co-star Jason Mamoa, argued Jessica Kovacevic, Heard’s agent.
According to the Evening Standard, “the agent said actors usually enjoy a rise in fame after a hit film like Aquaman” but that Heard’s career had since “stalled” and she had subsequently “missed out on an Amazon project with actor Gael Garcia Bernal”.
Kovacevic told the court: “No one can say out loud ‘We’re taking this away from her because of this bad press’ because it’s nothing she did.” She added: “It’s all hearsay, and it’s all whatever. But there’s no other reason.”
Heard testified earlier this week that her role in Aquaman 2 had been significantly curtailed amid the court battle with Depp, and said she had been given a new version of the script “that had taken away scenes that had action in it”.
The actor told the court that she had “fought really hard to stay in the movie. They didn’t want to include me in the film.”
But “nothing points towards Heard being ‘blacklisted’ yet,” said pop culture content specialist Karishma Rao at Sportskeeda.com. “Although the number of projects in her kitty is few, nothing signals towards her career’s fag end.”
According to IMDb, Heard is set to star in Conor Allyn’s In The Fire. In 2018, it was also announced that she would be starring in the romantic thriller Run Away With Me, which Variety said focuses on “two star-crossed lovers escaping the dark criminal underbelly of the European modelling industry”.
‘No one wins’
There was been widespread vilification of Heard online during the libel trial, and in the weeks that followed. Writing for The Times, Polly Vernon said that “the internet mood, and by extension, the public mood, is overwhelmingly anti-Heard”.
For Heard, the toll of the closely watched trial has been significant. Asked in court what effect being disbelieved had had on her, Heard replied: “It’s torture. It’s torturous. No one should have to do that. I want to move on with my life,” the Los Angeles Times reported.
She added: “I have a baby. I want to move on… I want Johnny to move on, too. I want him to leave me alone.”
Ultimately, a leading Hollywood publicist told CNN, neither Heard nor Depp will have benefited as a result of the very public trial. “Both are highly dysfunctional. Money is toxic and greed destroys. No one wins here,” they said.
