Johnny Depp will not have his day in court (again). The actor has been denied an appeal in his high-profile libel case in the UK with The Sun publisher News Group Newspapers.
Depp was looking to overturn a decision in which Judge Andrew Niccol ruled that the tabloid was fair in calling him a “wife beater”, with the verdict asserting that the accusation was “substantially true” in regard to his relationship with ex-wife Amber Heard. That ruling has now been upheld by the UK Court of Appeal.
This is a significant blow for Depp. After the initial trial, he was dropped from Warner Bros’ Fantastic Beasts franchise and replaced by Mads Mikkelsen, and he is now tarred with the ‘wife beater’ brush ahead of his blockbuster defamation trial against Heard in the U.S. next year.
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Responding to today’s verdict, Depp’s lawyer, Joelle Rich of Schillings Partners, sent a statement to Deadline saying she “seriously questioned” the UK court’s decision and that the actor was looking forward to “presenting the complete, irrefutable evidence of the truth in the U.S. libel case against Ms. Heard where she will have to provide full disclosure”.
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A spokesperson for Heard said they were “pleased but by no means surprised” by the decision and called Depp’s team’s claim of ‘new and important evidence’ “no more than a press strategy”.
“The evidence presented in the UK case was overwhelming and undeniable. To reiterate, the original verdict was that Mr. Depp committed domestic violence against Amber on no fewer than 12 occasions and she was left in fear of her life,” they added.
Appeals Judges Lord Justice Dingemans and Lord Justice Underhill this morning released a 14-page document explaining their decision.
“The hearing before Nicol J was full and fair, and he gave thorough reasons for his conclusions which have not been shown even arguably to be vitiated by any error of approach or mistake of law,” they said.
The court explained that it did not believe Depp’s team’s criticisms of Judge Niccol had a real chance of success on appeal, and that it did not accept that the judge had been swayed by the idea of Heard’s $7M charitable donations from her divorce settlement with Depp, which the actor’s reps claimed had never been fulfilled.
Andrew Caldecott QC led the bid for appeal on behalf of Depp. Last week, he told the UK Court of Appeal that an allegation made against Heard in January – the she had falsely claimed her $7M divorce payout had been given to charity – was grounds for the appeal to be heard.
During the original trial in the UK High Court, Heard stated that she donated the full amount to causes including L.A.’s Children Hospital Foundation and the American Civil Liberties Union, and this was cited by News Group’s lawyers as evidence that the actress could not be characterized as a “gold digger”. Earlier this year, her U.S. lawyer admitted to Deadline that the donations had been “delayed”, but claimed that this was because of Depp’s legal action against the actress, which had cost her millions of dollars in legal fees.
Caldecott had argued that the donation had “tipped the scales from the very beginning” of the case and that Heard had made a “calculated and manipulative lie”. He claimed that the original court may have been unable to ascertain Heard’s credibility because it had been swayed by the idea of the $7M donation.
News Groups’ rep Adam Wolanski had countered by saying that Heard had not lied, that the donations will be made, and that the information had been available to Depp’s team long before the original trial. He also said the “gold digger” argument was a “misogynistic trope”.
In today’s appeal ruling, the judges said they made no finding on whether her statements about her donations were misleading, noting that Depp’s team had not raised the issue at trial, and that they did not see reason to believe that the original judge’s decision was influenced by what had been said about the donations.
Over in the U.S., Depp’s separate $50M defamation trial against Herd was recently delayed until April 11, 2022. The actress is also pursuing a $100M countersuit.
The judges didn’t care that Amber Heard is a liar who committed perjury. She kept dodging to produce her charity receipts in the VA case but all of a sudden she produces a CHLA document with recent logo which says she pledged to pay the money over 10 years. She never gave the CHLA or the ACLU a dime. Whatever money they got came from Elon Musk’s charitable foundations. Johnny Depp should never have married that POS.
I have no handle on my comments. I’ll try to keep them short. I’m here to support Mr. Depp.
Since Depp is trying to clear his name he is doing what he’s supposed to, but it’s breaking the mold when the woman is the predator. The UK is screwing around all over the place, they placed Nicols, whose son works for Murdoch’s talk show, not to mention he was clearly biased and it was revealed in the bid for an appeal that he examined only 2 of the 12 cases and assumed the rest. Women have to deal with misogyny every day but when it comes to judging her for the abuser she is herself the “men” go limp. Gutless.
The world has officially shipped Johnny Depp off to retirement as his mainstream career is now over.
Maybe now he’ll have more time for Hollywood Vampires?
Depp needs to push his ego aside and let it go. Ego will destroy you man.
ego???????a innocent man lost money and job offers because of this .. this has nothing to do with ego. that woman ruined his life and made him out to be something he’s not
Never attempt at psychoanalysis by bringing words like “ego”. It is pseudoscience.
Never try to psychoanalyze someone with a term like “ego”. It is pseudoscience.
Self-admitted violent psycho Amber’s false accusations of abuse destroyed Depp’s career. Why shouldn’t he have a chance to clear his name? It’s not about ego. It’s about what’s right. Why should someone be able to destroy someone else with lies?
yeahhh sure. So far he’s not clearing his name, he’s just destroying it even more.
I can’t believe that Heard is still saying she will donate her divorce settlement, hasn’t it already been paid out to her? How gullable was this judge? She’s just stalling and will continue to stall. She has no intent to give any her divorce settlement, if she did it would have already happened. Its been over 4 years now, give me a break, she isn’t paying out anything. Of course Cocaine addiction from what I understand, can be very costly. Isn’t Heard doing any movies other than her short stint in Aquaman?