With their bitter defamation trial now over, Johnny Depp and Amber Heard are left to pick up the pieces of their careers. But how exactly they will choose to move forward — and how much of an appetite Hollywood will have to hire them — remains to be seen.
Six weeks of testimony over sensational allegations of domestic violence and emotional abuse did undeniable damage to the public images of both Depp, 58, and Heard, 36, with millions around the world following every step of the trial and taking sides on social media. On Wednesday, the Virginia jury largely decided in Depp’s favor, awarding him $10 million in compensatory damages and $5 million in punitive damages for what it deemed were Heard’s defamatory claims against him. (The latter was reduced by the judge to Virginia’s statutory cap of $350,000.) The jury also awarded $2 million in compensatory damages to Heard in her counterclaim.
Heading into the trial, Depp boasted by far the larger career between the two exes, having racked up more than $8 billion in worldwide box office grosses thanks to blockbusters including the “Pirates of the Caribbean” films, “Alice and Wonderland” and “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.”
