Amber Heard announced Monday that she and her ex-husband, Johnny Depp, have settled their high-profile defamation case.
“After a great deal of deliberation I have made a very difficult decision to settle the defamation case brought against me by my ex-husband in Virginia,” she wrote in an Instagram post.
She went on to say, “It’s important for me to say that I never chose this. I defended my truth and in doing so my life as I knew it was destroyed.”
A jury sided with Depp in the lengthy defamation trial between him and Heard in June. The jury awarded Depp $10 million in compensatory damages and $5 million in punitive damages. Heard was awarded $2 million in compensatory damages and no punitive damages. Virginia law states that punitive damages are capped at $350,000, so Depp will receive a total of $10.35 million.
In their respective testimonies during the trial, both Heard and Depp claimed the other abused them. The former couple, who met while filming 2011’s The Rum Diary and were married from 2015 to 2017, denied the other’s claims of abuse.
Heard filed a notice of appeal on July 21, with Depp filing a notice of appeal the following day.
In her note Monday, Heard touched on the impact of the media in the defamation case with her former spouse: “The vilification I have faced on social media is an amplified version of the ways in which women are re-victimised [sic] when they come forward.”
She also said of the settlement, “I have made no admission. This is not an act of concession. There are no restrictions or gags with respect to my voice moving forward.”
In her post, Heard also said she “lost faith in the American legal system” for how her case was handled.
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