Amber Heard has agreed to pay Johnny Depp $1 million to settle his defamation claim against her, a source familiar with the deal told Fox News Digital.
Heard, 36, will cough up the seven-figure sum to put an end to their acrimonious courtroom wrangling that began shortly after they split in 2016.
“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,”
“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,” she wrote on Instagram Monday.
Johnny Depp and Amber Heard have agreed to settle their defamation claims against each other.
(Getty Images)
“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 statement says. “The vilification I have faced on social media is an amplified version of the ways in which women are re-victimized 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.”
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Heard added that the deal imposes no restrictions on her ability to talk about the case or the disintegration of her marriage.
I have made no admission, this is not an act of concession,” she wrote. “There are no restrictions or gags with respect to my voice moving forward.”
After divorcing in 2017, Amber Heard and Johnny Depp have accused each other of domestic abuse.
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The “Danish Girl” star said she agreed to the deal “having lost faith in the American legal system.”
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She compared the U.S. trial to Depp’s lawsuit against the Sun newspaper for branding him a “wife-beater,” which he lost. Heard testified on behalf of the publisher, and her allegations of abuse were substantiated.
Actress Amber Heard, right, and her sister Whitney Heard, second left, depart the Fairfax County Courthouse on June 1, 2022 in Fairfax, Virginia after Johnny Depp won a $10.35 million judgment against her.
(Rod Lamkey/Consolidated News Pictures)
“When I stood before a judge in the UK, I was vindicated by a robust, impartial and fair system,” she wrote of the 2020 trial in London.
The nationally televised courtroom spectacle in Virginia ended in June with a jury awarding Depp a $15 million judgment against Heard for defaming him over an op-ed she wrote calling herself a domestic abuse victim.
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Judge Penney Azcarate reduced the sum to $10.35 million. The jury handed Heard $2 million in her countersuit, but the verdict was largely seen as a sweeping victory for Depp.
The “Aquaman” actress and Depp both appealed the verdict before reaching their latest agreement.
Split of Johnny Depp and Amber Heard. Left: Johnny Depp performs on stage with Jeff Beck (not pictured) during the Helsinki Blues Festival at Kaisaniemen Puisto on June 19, 2022 in Helsinki, Finland.
(Venla Shalin/Redferns via Getty Images)
“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,” she wrote of her decision not to pursue her appeal. “I simply cannot go through that a third time.”
She added that the emotional and financial costs of a second trial would be too great.
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A spokesperson for Depp didn’t immediately return a request for comment.
