Johnny Depp will not be able to appeal the verdict of the British judiciary 0:37
(CNN) — Three years after Johnny Depp filed a defamation lawsuit against his ex-wife Amber Heard, the case will go to trial this Monday in Fairfax County Circuit Court in Virginia.
We’ll tell you what you need to know below.
What happened?
Depp and Amber met on the set of The Rum Diary in 2009, married in 2015, and have been mired in a contentious breakup for months, with allegations of misconduct on both sides.
In 2016, Heard claimed that Depp injured her face after she threw a phone at her Los Angeles home. Depp denied this and was not charged with a crime.
The couple settled their divorce months later, releasing a joint statement that read, in part, “Our relationship has been very passionate and volatile at times, but always bound by love.”
In December 2018, Heard wrote an opinion piece for The Washington Post titled “I spoke out against sexual violence and faced the wrath of our culture. This needs to change,” in which she wrote, “I became a depiction of domestic violence. and I felt the full force of our culture’s anger at women speaking out.
“Friends and advisors told me I would never work as an actress again, that I would be blacklisted. A movie I was in gave my role to another actress,” Heard wrote. “I had just filmed a two-year campaign as the face of a global fashion brand and the company fired me.”
Depp’s name is not mentioned in the article.
Demand
The following year, Depp filed a $50 million defamation lawsuit against Heard.
Her lawsuit alleges that while the actor is not named, “the comment clearly addresses (and has been consistently labeled as such by other media outlets) alleged victimization of Ms. Heard after she publicly accused her ex-husband Johnny Depp. (Mr Depp) for domestic violence in 2016, when she appeared in court with an apparently bruised face and obtained a restraining order against Mr Depp on May 27, 2016.”
Depp’s lawsuit also alleges that Heard’s allegations caused him financial losses, including being removed from future Pirates of the Caribbean films after he was the face of the franchise for 15 years.
Depp has maintained his innocence over the years, and in a 2021 interview with The Sun, he complained that Hollywood was boycotting him.
“A man, an actor, in an ugly, messy situation, the last few years…” he said, “but, you know, I’m moving where I need to go to do all of this… To get things out there.” .
Heard’s response to the lawsuit
In 2019, the actress tried to have the lawsuit dismissed.
In an affidavit obtained by CNN that was included with Heard’s motion to dismiss the case against her, she said she witnessed the Pirates of the Caribbean star’s drug and alcohol abuse within a year of their relationship .
“Every time he used it, I worried about both of us,” Heard said on the filing. “He became a completely different person, often delusional and violent. We called this version of Johnny ‘the monster’.”
Court documents describe several instances of alleged abuse in which Heard alleges Depp hit her, threw bottles at her, yelled at her, pushed her, pulled her hair out and once strangled her.
In response to the allegations, Depp’s attorney, Adam Waldman, told CNN, “A hoax confronted with the reality of the evidence requires new lies to hold its own.”
The application for dismissal was rejected.
Heard filed a $100 million defamation counterclaim against Depp in 2020, which is pending.
The last
Over the weekend, Heard posted a note about the upcoming trial on his verified social media accounts, writing, “I never gave a name [Depp]Rather, I have written about the price women pay when they speak out against men in power. I’m still paying that price but I hope to be able to move on when this case is over and so is Johnny.”
“I have always loved Johnny and it pains me greatly to have to relive the details of our past life together in front of the whole world,” she wrote. “At this point I recognize the continued support I have happily received over the years and over these next few weeks I will be leaning on him more than ever.”