Johnny Depp has lost his appeal of a UK court ruling that said a tabloid didn’t libel him when it labeled him a “wife beater,” given the “considerable” evidence that he battered his ex-wife Amber Heard on multiple occasions during their turbulent relationship and marriage.
Court of Appeal judges in London Thursday dismissed Depp’s claims that a retrial of his libel lawsuit against The Sun was necessary because of the “devastating” impact on his movie career, the Times UK reported.
Lord Justice Underhill said the trial judge’s ruling in November was correct, explaining that the judge, Andrew Nichol, had found “considerable support from the contemporaneous evidence, that when under the influence of drink and drugs (Depp) was liable to moods of extreme anger and jealousy and could behave highly destructively.”
Underhill concluded: “The hearing before Mr. Justice Nicol was full and fair.”
A spokesperson for Heard told the Times that the actress, 34, was “pleased” but not “surprised” by the court’s denial of Depp’s appeal: “Mr. Depp’s claim of new and important evidence was nothing more than a press strategy, and has been soundly rejected by the court.”
A spokesperson for The Sun added: “The case had a full, fair and proper hearing, and today’s decision vindicates the courageous evidence that Amber Heard gave to the court about domestic abuse, despite repeated attempts to undermine and silence her by the perpetrator.”
The embattled “Pirates of the Caribbean” actor, 57, had sought to salvage his reputation with the risky move of launching a libel suit against The Sun, which had labeled him a “wife beater” in a 2018 story. Depp was once one of Hollywood’s most popular and bankable stars, but his public image was badly damaged when Heard filed for divorce in 2016 and alleged that he had been abusive during their five-year relationship and 15-month marriage.
Depp’s suit meant that tawdry details of his and Heard’s behavior during their time together was aired during a 16-public trial last July.
Justice Nichol heard multiple allegations against Depp, including the time in 2014 when Heard said a drunken Depp slapped and kicked her on a flight from Boston to Los Angeles, before passing out in the restroom. The Sun also claimed that Depp’s jealousy, addictions and misogyny led to “violent explosions,” including a 2015 fight in Australia in which Depp’s finger was severed and he used the stump to scrawl messages in his own blood.
Depp, moreover, faced intense questioning about his extravagant, self-indulgent lifestyle, his abuse of alcohol and drugs, and allegations of violence. Depp and Heard began dating near the end of 2011, married in 2015, but split in 2016, when Heard filed a domestic violence restraining order against him.
During testimony, Depp admitted to drinking and using cocaine excessively and discussed losing the $650 million he made during the height of his “Pirates of the Caribbean” fame. He also accused Heard of having an affair with billionaire Tesla CEO Elon Musk, which Heard denied, and was questioned about threatening to cut Musk’s penis off.
In a stunning verdict last November that went against most expectations, Nichol ruled that The Sun’s story, calling Depp a “wife beater,” was “substantially true.”
But during the trial, Depp denied he’d ever been violent toward Heard and claimed she had been abusive toward him during their relationship.
Attorneys for the actor immediately vowed to appeal, saying in November that Nichol only seemed to rely on Heard’s testimony and overlooked “the mountain of counter-evidence from police officers, medical practitioners” and others, which “completely undermined the allegations, point by point.”
For Depp’s appeal, the actor’s legal team sought to undermine Heard’s credibility by saying she misled the trial court by claiming she donated all of her $7 million divorce settlement to the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and to the Children’s Hospital Los Angeles, the Times and The Sun reported.
His attorneys said Heard’s pledge to donate all her settlement was a “calculated and manipulative lie” that “subliminally” influenced the trial judge into believing that she hadn’t married Depp for his money.
Depp’s attorneys tried to back up this assertion with new evidence that they said showed the actress had only directly donated a total of $550,000 to the ACLU and to the Children’s Hospital of Los Angeles.
Heard’s legal team stated that she had done “nothing dishonest” with her donations to the charities and said it was known that she would pay out her donations “over 10 years.” They also provided their own evidence, showing that the “Aquaman” star had gifted a total of $950,000 to the ACLU and $850,000 to the Children’s Hospital through anonymous donors, People reported.
Adam Wolanski, an attorney representing The Sun’s publisher, News Group Newspapers, said the evidence about Heard’s charity donations would not have had any impact on the result of the trial, The Sun reported.
Wolanski said the issue of Heard donating her settlement to charity was only of relevance to “the so-called ‘gold-digger’ thesis,” which Depp’s legal team didn’t raise during the trial.
Wolanski added: “The labeling of Ms. Heard as a gold-digger was a misogynistic trope. The gold-digger theory was hopeless.”
Days after the trial court ruling in November, Depp announced that he had been asked by the Warner Bros. studio to resign from the Fantastic Beasts franchise, the lucrative Harry Potter spin-off in which he portrayed evil wizard Gellert Grindelwald.
But Depp’s legal fight against Heard is not over. He is suing her for $50 million in Virginia over a 2018 op-ed article she wrote for the Washington Post, in which she described herself as a victim of domestic violence. That trial has been delayed until April 2022.
