Johnny Depp and Amber Heard to Face Off in Defamation Trial

The actor Johnny Depp could not convince a judge in London that he was innocent of allegations that he had abused his former wife, the actress Amber Heard, but in a trial starting Monday, the actor will take his defamation complaint to a jury in Virginia.

The U.S. trial centers on a lawsuit Mr. Depp filed against Ms. Heard, who wrote an op-ed in The Washington Post in 2018, after the couple divorced, saying she had become a “public figure representing domestic abuse.”

The piece did not mention Mr. Depp by name, but the actor has asserted in court papers that it clearly referred to their relationship, and that his reputation and career were “devastated” as a result.

During three years of legal sparring in Virginia, Mr. Depp, 58, and Ms. Heard, 35, have shared pages of lurid details from their varying accounts of their marriage. Ms. Heard’s descriptions of “volatile and violent” episodes with Mr. Depp throughout their relationship included his slapping her, head-butting her, throwing her to the ground, and pulling out clumps of her hair, according to court papers.

The trial in Fairfax County Circuit Court is expected to last about six weeks and will begin with jury selection. The proceedings will be televised, all but guaranteeing that they will become a public spectacle. Both parties are expected to testify. In addition, Ms. Heard’s list of potential witnesses includes several celebrities — among them Elon Musk and James Franco — and the evidence the two sides intend to put forward includes text messages between the couple, medical records and surveillance footage from Los Angeles, where they lived together.