‘Difficult decision’: Amber Heard to settle defamation case with Johnny Depp

According to Reuters, Heard called the decision to settle with Depp “very difficult” adding that it followed “a great deal of deliberation.”

On 6 December, reports stated that Amber Heard had appealed the $10 million Johnny Depp defamation verdict in the Virginia court, less than a month after the ‘Pirates of the Caribbean’ actor filed his own appeal.

Heard, in a post on Instagram, did not reveal the terms of the settlement, which comes after a Virginia jury ordered her to pay $10 million to the “Pirates of the Caribbean” star.

Amber Heard said she was dropping her appeal of the damages awarded by the jury and settling the case because she “simply cannot go through” another trial.

“I make this decision having lost faith in the American legal system, where my unprotected testimony served as entertainment and social media fodder,” she said.

“Now I finally have an opportunity to emancipate myself from something I attempted to leave over six years ago and on terms I can agree to,” Heard said.

The jury found Depp and Heard liable for defamation — but sided more strongly with the “Pirates” star following an intense six-week trial riding on bitterly contested allegations of domestic abuse.

The jury awarded $10 million in damages to Depp after finding that a 2018 newspaper article penned by Heard on her experience of “sexual violence” was defamatory.

Heard, who had countersued, was awarded $2 million.

The case, live streamed to millions, featured lurid and intimate details about the Hollywood celebrities’ private lives.

(With agency inputs)