Amber Heard’s lawyer revealed on Thursday that her client can’t afford to pay the millions of dollars in damages after losing a defamation case against her ex-husband and Golden Globe-winning actor, Johnny Depp, saying she will “absolutely” appeal the case.
A 7-person jury in Virginia reached a verdict on Wednesday regarding Depp’s defamation lawsuit against ex-wife Heard. Jurors concluded that the 36-year-old “Aquaman” actress defamed her ex-husband when she wrote a 2018 opinion article for the Washington Post.
In favor of Depp, the jury awarded compensatory damages of $10 million and punitive damages of $5 million—which was reduced by Judge Penney Azcarate to Virginia’s $350,000 statutory cap. They also ruled that Depp has to pay $2 million to Heard. It ruled in favor of a counterclaim Heard had filed after Depp’s lawyer called her abuse allegations a hoax.
During an interview on NBC’s daily live broadcast, “The Today Show,” Heard’s lawyer, Elaine Bredehoft, said her client is “absolutely not” able to pay the $10.4 million in damages the jury awarded the 58-year-old “Pirates of the Caribbean” star.
Bredehoft also said that Heard wants to appeal the case, saying her client “has some excellent grounds for it.”
The lawyer insisted that Heard was “demonized” by Depp’s team during the case, claiming “an enormous amount of evidence” that was used in her UK case “was suppressed” in the Virginia trial.
“A number of things were allowed in this court that should not have been allowed, and it caused the jury to be confused,” Bredehoft said. “We weren’t allowed to tell them about the UK judgment, so the damages is completely skewed. There are no damages, it stopped on Nov. 2, 2020, which is when the verdict came down in the UK.”
The 6-week-long trial, which drew numerous international headlines, included lurid details of the celebrities’ short and volatile marriage. Heard testified that Depp physically or sexually assaulted her more than a dozen times. Depp said that he never struck Heard, that she concocted the abuse allegations, and that she was the one who physically attacked him, multiple times.
After the verdict, Depp released a statement, saying his life, his children’s lives, and everyone close to him were “forever changed … in the blink of an eye” by the allegations made against him.
“False, very serious, and criminal allegations were levied at me via the media, which triggered an endless barrage of hateful content, although no charges were ever brought against me,” the statement read. “It had already traveled around the world twice within a nanosecond and it had a seismic impact on my life and my career. And six years later, the jury gave me my life back. I am truly humbled.”
“From the very beginning, the goal of bringing this case was to reveal the truth, regardless of the outcome,” the actor added. “Speaking the truth was something that I owed to my children and to all those who have remained steadfast in their support of me. I feel at peace knowing I have finally accomplished that.”
Heard wrote in a statement moments after she left the verdict’s reading on Wednesday that she is “heartbroken that the mountain of evidence still was not enough to stand up to the disproportionate power, influence, and sway of my ex-husband.”