Amber Heard ‘absolutely not’ able to pay Johnny Depp US$10 million in damages, her lawyer says
- The actress wants to appeal the verdict after a US jury took her ex-husband’s side in a high-profile defamation trial
- The Aquaman star’s lawyer says Depp’s legal team worked to ‘demonise’ Heard and suppressed crucial evidence
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Finding both were defamed, jury awards Johnny Depp US$15m and Amber Heard US$2m
Actress Amber Heard is unable to pay her ex-husband Johnny Depp more than US$10 million in damages, her lawyer said on Thursday, after a US jury took the side of the Pirates of the Caribbean star in a bitter defamation trial.
The high-profile televised court battle ended on Wednesday when a seven-person jury found that Depp and Heard had defamed each other, but weighed in far more strongly with Depp.
The jury, after a six-week trial featuring claims and counterclaims of domestic abuse, awarded him US$10.35 million in damages, in contrast with US$2 million awarded to Heard.
Asked on NBC’s Today show if Heard will be able to pay up, her lawyer Elaine Bredehoft said: “Oh no, absolutely not.” She added that the Aquaman star wants to appeal the verdict and “has some excellent grounds for it”.
The 58-year-old Depp, who lost a libel case against the British tabloid The Sun in London in 2020 for calling him a “wife beater”, celebrated the split verdict in the case as a victory while Heard said she was “heartbroken”.
Depp sued Heard over an op-ed she wrote for The Washington Post in December 2018 in which she described herself as a “public figure representing domestic abuse”.