'He really LOST': Johnny Depp's courtroom win was a Pyrrhic victory, says lawyer Domenic Romano
A New York City business and entertainment lawyer has expressed his thoughts over the defamation judgment that saw jurors majorly favoring Johnny Depp over Amber Heard. Domenic Romano has called the 58-year-old actor’s win a “Pyrrhic Victory,” which means “a victory that is not worth winning because the winner has lost so much in winning it,” as per Cambridge Dictionary. It has been said that “the word comes from the name of Pyrrhus, a long-ago king of Epirus, who suffered heavy losses in defeating the Romans at Asculum in Apulia in 279 B.C.E.”
Romano told Hana Ostapchuk of Cheddar News, “Even when you win, you lose. This may be a legal victory, but it’s not really a reputational victory, and definitely not a moral victory for Johnny Depp or society at large.” The attorney also said that bringing a case against Heard by Depp was not a good idea since it also brought back details of the 2020 UK libel case that ruled that ‘The Rum Diary’ star was a “wife-beater”.
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Not just that, during the recent court proceedings, a lot of personal chat messages and content were brought out that showed Depp in quite a bad light. Two of those shocking messages from the father-of-two reportedly were him hoping Heard’s “rotting corpse is decomposing in the f**king truck of a Honda civic,” and how he will “f*** her burnt corpse afterward to make sure she's dead.” Romano remarked: “I thought this whole thing was a terrible idea for him. I mean how do you look good?”
However, Romano dismissed several people’s views that the result of this trial will severely affect the “MeToo” movement. He added: “In the larger scheme, I do not think this will set back the #MeToo movement. People will see it’s not a great idea to litigate a personal relationship. Victims will continue to be rightfully emboldened to come forward.”
On June 1, the seven-member jury of the defamation trial in a Virginia court found Depp’s three allegations against the ‘Aquaman’ actress to be true while they favored only one accusation of Heard. While the ‘Fantastic Beasts And Where To Find Them’ star was awarded $10.35 million damages, his 36-year-old former wife got $2 million.
After the verdict was made, Heard took to her Instagram to issue a statement that read: “The disappointment I feel today is beyond words. I'm heartbroken that the mountain of evidence still was not enough to stand up to the disproportionate power, influence and sway of my ex husband.”
She also added, “It sets back the clock to a time when a woman who spoke up and spoke up could be publicly shamed and humiliated. It sets back the idea that violence against women should be taken seriously. I believe Johnny's attorneys succeeded in getting the jury to overlook the key issue of Freedom of Speech and ignore evidence that was so conclusive that we won in the U.K. I'm sad I lost this case. But I am sadder still that I seem to have lost a right I thought I had as an American - to speak freely and openly.”