Johnny Depp, Amber Heard Trial Ends With Closing Arguments

After six weeks of vicious allegations, Johnny Depp and Amber Heard’s opposing defamation lawsuits are now officially in the hands of a jury.

At stake are potential payouts that could reach as high as $100 million as well as the reputations of two of the biggest stars in the world, both of whom have already been deeply tarred as a result of the high-profile trial that exposed the most sordid parts of their yearslong relationship for the world to see.

Speaking to the seven jurors in Virginia’s Fairfax County Circuit Court, and to an audience watching on television and online around the globe, lawyers for both actors presented their closing arguments on Friday — six years to the day from when Heard was granted a restraining order against Depp, now her ex-husband, citing physical abuse.

Depp’s team argued the Pirates of the Caribbean star had had his life ruined by false accusations of abuse by Heard, which she repeated in a 2018 Washington Post opinion piece over which he is suing. In the piece, Heard didn’t name her ex-husband but said she was a victim.

Depp attorney Benjamin Chew said his client had been “canceled by Hollywood” and that his career was left in ruins as a result of Heard’s claims.

“The case for Mr. Depp has never been about money, nor is it about punishing Ms. Heard,” Chew said. “It is about the damage to reputation and freeing him from the prison in which he has lived for the last six years.”

Painting her as an actor playing “the role of her lifetime,” Depp’s attorneys accused Heard of putting on a show for the jury and “sobbing without tears” — a claim that caused Heard to wince in visible disgust.

“She came into this courtroom prepared to give the performance of her life and she gave it,” Depp attorney Camille Vasquez told the jury.

As part of her evidence, Vasquez showed photos of Heard to the jury that she said did not contain any evidence of physical injury and played audio of Heard admitting she had struck Depp during one of their arguments.

While actor Ellen Barkin testified that Depp had been jealous and controlling when they had dated in the 1990s, his team noted that Heard had been unable to produce any other of his former partners to testify that he had abused them.

Depp supports the #MeToo movement, his lawyers said, but only for “true survivors of abuse.”

“Amber Heard is not a true victim. And Mr. Depp is certainly not an abuser,” Chew said. “Again, nobody has come out of the woodwork to say, ‘Me too.’”

Instead, they said Heard had consistently verbally, physically, and emotionally abused Depp during their relationship.

“There is an abuser in this courtroom, but it is not Mr. Depp,” Vasquez said, “and there is a victim of domestic abuse in this courtroom, but it is not Ms. Heard.”