Johnny Depp has won his defamation lawsuit against ex-wife Amber Heard, a Virginia jury decided Wednesday, with cheers going up outside the courtroom from the crowd of Depp supporters who gathered there. Inside the courtroom, a black-clad Heard kept her eyes downcast as the jury’s decision that she had lost her countersuit was read.
The jury awarded Depp $10 million in compensatory damages and $5 million in punitive damages. The latter was reduced by Judge Penney Azcarate to Virginia’s statutory cap of $350,000. The jury also awarded $2 million in compensatory damages to Heard in her counterclaim and no punitive damages after finding one point of her lawsuit valid.
The verdict — from a jury of five men and two women — came after nearly 13 hours of deliberation spanning three days. The turbulent defamation trial, which started April 11 and took place over the past six weeks, saw Depp and Heard trade disturbing allegations of domestic violence and abuse against a background of social media source that tilted heavily in the “Pirates of the Caribbean” star’s direction.
