In the defamation case between Johnny Depp and his ex-wife Amber Heard, the jury found in his favour and gave him $10.35 million. Now, Benjamin Chew, an attorney for Johnny, said that Amber might not have to pay the money after all. He also said that Johnny didn’t care about the money in the trial.
In April and May 2022, the defamation trial between Amber Heard and Johnny Depp lasted about six weeks and took place in Virginia, US. Johnny was given about $5 million in punitive damages and $10 million in damages to make up for what he had lost. On the other hand, Amber was given $2 million in compensation.
On Wednesday, George Stephanopoulos of Good Morning America asked Johnny’s lawyer Benjamin Chew if Johnny would agree to a settlement in which Amber agrees not to appeal the case in exchange for “him waiving monetary damages.” Benjamin gave a hint that this might happen when he said, “It’s possible.”
He said, “We obviously can’t talk about attorney-client communications, but as Mr. Depp testified and as we both made clear in our closings, this was never about money for him,” Benjamin said on the show. “The point was to fix his reputation, and he did that.”
The former couple went to court over an article that Amber wrote for The Washington Post in 2018 about being abused at home without naming Johnny. After Amber’s essay was made public, Johnny sued his ex-wife for $50 million.
The trial started in April 2022, and the judge announced the verdict on June 1. The jury found that Amber didn’t have enough proof to back up her claims against Johnny, so they said that her claims of abuse when she wrote the article were false. But the jury also decided that Johnny had once lied about Amber, so they gave her $2 million in damages to make up for it.