Depp and Heard face uncertain career prospects
FAIRFAX, VA. » A jury’s finding that both Johnny Depp and Amber Heard were defamed during their longrunning public dispute capped a lurid six-week trial that also raised questions about whether the two actors can overcome tarnished reputations.
The verdict handed down Wednesday in Virginia found that Depp had been defamed by three statements in an op-ed written by his ex-wife in which Heard said she was an abuse victim. The jury awarded him more than $10 million.
Jurors also awarded Heard $2 million, concluding that she was defamed by a lawyer for Depp who accused her of creating a detailed hoax surrounding the abuse allegations.
Heard’s lawyer Elaine Bredehoft said on “CBS Mornings” that her client plans to file an appeal.
Depp had hoped the libel lawsuit would help restore his reputation. However, legal and entertainment experts said both actors’ reputations have been damaged by ugly details about their brief marriage that came out during the televised trial watched by millions.
“Both of them will work again, but I think it will be a while before a major studio will consider them ‘safe’ enough to bet on,” said former entertainment lawyer Matthew Belloni, who writes about the business of Hollywood for the newsletter Puck. “The personal baggage that was revealed in this trial was just too icky for a studio to want to deal with.”
The case captivated viewers
who watched gavel-togavel television coverage, including impassioned followers on social media who dissected the actors’ mannerisms, their wardrobe choices and their use of alcohol and drugs.
Both performers emerge with unclear prospects. Depp, a three-time best actor Oscar nominee, was a bankable star until recent years, with credits including playing Capt. Jack Sparrow in the “Pirates of the Caribbean” films. However, he lost that role and was replaced in a “Fantastic Beasts” spinoff.
Heard’s acting career has been more modest, and her only two upcoming roles are in a small film and the upcoming “Aquaman” sequel due out next year.
Eric Rose, a crisis-management and communications expert in Los Angeles, called the trial a “classic murder-suicide” in terms of damage to both careers.
“From a reputation-management perspective, there can be no winners,” he said. “They’ve bloodied each other up. It becomes more difficult now for studios to hire either actor because you’re potentially alienating a large segment of your audience who may not like the fact that you have retained either Johnny or Amber for
a specific project because feelings are so strong now.”
Depp sued Heard for libel in Fairfax County Circuit Court over a December 2018 op-ed she wrote in The Washington Post describing herself as “a public figure representing domestic abuse.” The essay never mentioned his name.
The jury found in Depp’s favor on all three of his claims relating to specific statements in the piece.
In evaluating Heard’s counterclaims, jurors considered three statements by a lawyer for Depp who called her allegations a hoax. They found she was defamed by one of them, in which the lawyer claimed that she and friends “spilled a little wine and roughed the place up, got their stories straight,” and called police.
While the case was ostensibly about libel, most of the testimony focused on whether Heard had been physically and sexually abused, as she claimed. Heard enumerated more than a dozen alleged assaults, including a fight in Australia, where Depp was shooting a “Pirates of the Caribbean” sequel, in which Depp lost the tip of his middle finger and Heard said she was sexually assaulted.