Johnny Depp lost his case against The Sun, who called him a "wife beater" after his breakup with Amber Heard
The case exposed the tumultuous relationship between the protagonist of "Pirates of the Caribbean" and the actress between 2015 and 2017
American actor Johnny Depp, described as a violent husband with his ex-wife Amber Heard by The Sun in 2018, lost the libel suit against the British tabloid on Monday, which the judge said wrote something "substantially true."
"The defendants have shown that what they published, in the sense that their words have as I understand it, was substantially true," said London judge Andrew Nicol, announcing his verdict in this highly mediatic case.
The proceedings, held in July before the High Court in London, revolved around a headline from April 2018 in which The Sun wondered how British writer J.K. Rowling could take on this "wife beater" in the movie Fantastic Beasts.
For three weeks, the London court heard lurid stories of drug abuse, feces in the marriage bed, suspicions of infidelity and a finger severed by a bottle during a violent fight.
Many wondered why, at 57, one of the most famous Hollywood actors took the risk of exposing his privacy and his extravagant lifestyle in full view of all.
The 57-year-old protagonist of Pirates of the Caribbean assured that the phrase written by the English newspaper had changed his image in Hollywood, endangering his career.
Depp was "mentioned on the same level as movie mogul Harvey Weinstein," convicted in March in the United States of sex crimes, the star's lawyer, David Sherborne, went on to say.
For this reason, he sued the publishing group News Group Newspapers (NGN) and its executive director, Dan Wootton, to wash a reputation that can now be further sunk by this court decision.
NGN defended that it was based on 14 alleged cases of abuse from Depp to Heard, which it detailed in great detail during the process.
"I have reached these conclusions after having examined in detail the 14 incidents on which the defendants relied, as well as the general considerations presented by the plaintiff," the judge wrote.
The case, described as "the largest libel trial of the 21st century in England", exposed the dirtiest rags of the tumultuous marriage between Depp and Heard, exposing their intimacy and their extravagant lifestyle in full view.
Acknowledging his abuses, the actor assured during the trial that in his years of marriage to Heard he used drugs so much that he was "in no condition" to hurt the 34-year-old model and movie star.
And that he had never laid his hand on a woman, a claim supported by the written testimonies of his ex-partners Vanessa Paradis and Winona Ryder.
Depp met the actress from The Danish Girl and Aquaman on the set of Diario de un seductor (The Rum Diaries, in Spain) in 2011 and they were married in February 2015 in Los Angeles. They were divorced two years later.
The actress then spoke of "years" of "physical and psychological" violence, accusations that Johnny Depp vehemently denied.
During the trial in London, Depp's lawyer made an effort to present the actress as the true violent of the couple. And he accused her of being a "compulsive liar" who had fabricated a case against Depp for years to boost his career.
During the divorce proceedings, Heard withdrew her complaint and he gave her seven million dollars that the actress gave to associations.
Johnny Depp was going to reprise next year as the evil Gellert Grindelwad in Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, a spinoff from the magical universe of Harry Potter. But this case has cast doubt on his participation in the film.
