Amber Heard Sends Public Message Before Trial With Johnny Depp

Johnny Depp’s ex-wife Amber Heard publicly shared a message shortly before trial with Johnny Depp in court on Monday 11th April.

Heard wrote on her Instagram “I’m going to go offline for the next several weeks. As you may know, I’ll be in Virginia where I face my ex-husband Johnny Depp in court.”

The defamation case is to be held in Fairfax, Virginia, with Heard hoping to “move on” after the case.

She added “Johnny is suing me for an op-ed I wrote in The Washington Post, in which I recounted my experience of violence and domestic abuse. I never named him, rather I wrote about the price women pay for speaking against men in power. I continue to pay that price, but hopefully, when this case concludes, I can move on and so can Johnny. I have always maintained a love for Johnny and it brings me great pain to have to live out the details of our past life together in front of the world. At this time, I recognise the ongoing support I’ve been fortunate to receive throughout these years, and in these coming weeks I will be leaning on it more than ever.”

The trial comes from a case filed by Johnny Depp in 2019 with Depp asking for $50m (£38.4m) in damages because Amber Heard, allegedly defamed him in an opinion piece she wrote for The Washington Post in 2018 where she wrote that she is “a public figure representing domestic abuse”. 

To counter Depp, Heard filed a case alleging that Depp planned a “smear campaign” insisting that his lawsuit is another form of “abuse and harassment” she faces from Depp.

In her case, she requested $100m (£76.8m) in damages and also asked for immunity from Depp’s claims.

So far, Depp has lost a libel suit against London’s Sun’s publisher in November 2020, after a headline in 2018 labelled him a “wife-beater” plus lost the bid to overturn the ruling.