Johnny Depp on Monday lost his sensational libel case against a British newspaper that accused him of beating ex-wife Amber Heard.
After an explosive trial that included allegations of everything from adultery to defecation in the pair’s marital bed, London High Court Judge Andrew Nicol delivered his decision following three months of deliberating.
“The claimant has not succeeded in his action for libel,” the judge wrote, saying that The Sun newspaper had shown that what they published was “substantially true.”
Depp, the 57-year-old multimillionaire star of “Pirates of the Caribbean,” had sued the paper and its executive editor, Dan Wootton, over its April 2018 headline labelling him a “wife-beater” based on Heard’s allegations.
Depp took the stand at trial to claim he was brought up too much of a Southern gentleman to lay a finger on a woman — and instead called the “Aquaman” actress the abusive one, saying she even faked photos to make it look like he injured her when really it was nothing more than a “choreographed hoax” to ruin him.
The actress “came into my life to take from me anything worth taking and then destroy what remained of it,” the actor testified.
The Sun’s star witness was Heard, 34 — who called Depp a boozing, drugged-up “monster,” saying he nearly killed her during their toxic, five-year relationship.
Depp once launched a “three-day ordeal of assaults” on her in a rented home in Australia, she claimed.
He lost his fingertip during the attack — then allegedly wrote her name in pee on the floor and scrawled hateful messages on mirrors using the bloody stump of his finger.
Depp was supposedly jealous over her friendship with co-star Billy Bob Thornton — one of a series of people he accused Heard of having affairs with. Others included actors Leonardo DiCaprio and James Franco and Tesla mogul Elon Musk, the court heard.
Then, just when it seemed the former couple had hit a new low, Depp testified that he dumped Heard after she or a pal defecated in his bed out of vengeance — and snapshots of the offending feces were entered into evidence.
But even with Monday’s ruling, the former Hollywood couple’s battle is far from over.
Depp is still suing Heard for $50 million in Virginia over a Washington Post op-ed she penned about her experience as a victim of domestic violence. While Depp wasn’t named in the piece, he insists it was strongly inferred he was the perpetrator.
She has filed a $100 million countersuit.
