MILLION-DOLLAR PEACE OF MIND: Johnny Depp is just HAPPY to 'close painful Amber Heard chapter’
FAIRFAX COUNTY, VIRGINIA: It seems a new chapter has opened for the exes, Johnny Depp and Amber Heard after they finally chose to resolve defamation claims against each other. The 36-year-old actress' insurance firm has reportedly agreed to pay $1 million to Depp. Now, in a statement released by the actor’s lawyers, it has been mentioned that he’s happy to "close the door on this painful chapter."
As per reports, Benjamin Chew and Camille Vasquez have issued a statement on behalf of Depp that read, “We are pleased to formally close the door on this painful chapter for Mr Depp, who made clear throughout this process that his priority was about bringing the truth to light. The jury's unanimous decision and the resulting judgment in Mr Depp's favour against Ms Heard remain fully in place.”
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The statement also noted that the amount, which Heard is paying to her former husband, won't be used by him. It added, “The payment of one million dollars - which Mr Depp is pledging and will donate to charities - reinforces Ms Heard's acknowledgment of the conclusion of the legal system's rigorous pursuit for justice.”
This comes after earlier this year, Depp and Heard were involved in a vicious courtroom drama that exposed a lot of shocking and personal details about their 15-month-old marriage. After a lot of arguments and testimonies, a court in Fairfax County, Virginia, ruled in favor of the ‘Edward Scissorhands’ star and asked Heard to give him $10 million in compensatory damages and $5 million, which was eventually lessened to $365,000 in punitive damages.
The court also asked Depp to pay $2 million to the ‘Aquaman’ actress. Though initially the mother-of-one had “filed an appeal to the Virginia courts asking for a reversal of the decision or an entirely new trial” after the June verdict, the plan was reportedly dropped to avoid any more drama. An insider told MailOnline, “Amber is now looking forward to moving on with her life as she planned to do six years ago. She wants to put this unfortunate episode behind her and turn to what she loves in life: her career, her family and her causes.”
Heard also took to Instagram to share her thoughts on the new developments. She wrote, “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. 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. The vilification I have faced on social media is an amplified version of the ways in which women are re-victimised when they come forward."
“Now I finally have an opportunity to emancipate myself from something I attempted to leave over six years ago and on terms I can agree to. 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. I make this decision having lost faith in the American legal system, where my unprotected testimony served as entertainment and social media fodder.”
‘The Danish Girl’ actress expressed, “When I stood before a judge in the UK, I was vindicated by a robust, impartial and fair system, where I was protected from having to give the worst moments of my testimony in front of the world's media, and where the court found that I was subjected to domestic and sexual violence.”
“In the US, however, I exhausted almost all my resources in advance of and during a trial in which I was subjected to a courtroom that in which abundant, direct evidence that corroborated my testimony was excluded and in which popularity and power mattered more than reason and due process. In the interim I was exposed to a type of humiliation that I simply cannot re-live. Even if my US appeal is successful, the best outcome would be a re-trial where a new jury would have to consider the evidence again. I simply cannot go through that for a third time,” Heard added.