Johnny Depp waiting to see his reputation washed by the English justice
The outcome of the "largest defamation trial of the 21st century in England" will be known on Monday, which brought to light the actor's marriage to Amber Heard.
The American actor Johnny Depp will find out on Monday if the English justice agrees to "clean" his reputation, with the verdict in a highly mediatic defamation case against the British tabloid The Sun, which presented him as a violent husband.
The Hollywood star, who traveled to Spain in September to present Crock of Gold, a biopic about Irish singer Shane MacGowan, at the San Sebastian Festival is not expected to travel to London to hear the court decision.
Billed as "England's largest defamation trial of the 21st century," the case brought out the dirtiest rags in July from the tumultuous marriage between Pirates of the Caribbean star and actress Amber Heard between 2105 and 2017.
For three weeks, a 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.
Damaged race
Many wondered why, at the age of 57, one of the most famous Hollywood actors risked exposing his privacy and extravagant lifestyle in full view of all.
Depp sued The Sun's publishing group, News Group Newspapers (NGN), and its CEO, Dan Wootton, for portraying him in an April 2018 article as a "wife beater," assuming he hit Heard, something he has always denied.
He denounced that the newspaper's claims had damaged his career and said he needed to "clean up" his image.
NGN defended that it was based on 14 alleged cases of abuse by Depp of Heard, which it detailed in great detail during the process.
But according to British legal commentators the tabloid has a high chance of losing to the very strict English libel law, which requires the media to prove its claims.
Marital violence
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 divorce proceedings, Heard withdrew his complaint and he gave her seven million dollars that the actress gave to associations.
In London, his lawyer said that far from being responsible for marital violence, Depp had suffered it at the hands of his young wife, presented as a manipulative and "compulsive liar" who for years concocted an elaborate "deception" to propel his career.
Called as a witness by The Sun, Heard defended that she loved her husband and that she remained by his side in the hope that he would detoxify from drugs and alcohol. But she said she was afraid that Depp would kill her with his outbursts of violence.
The NGN attorney described him as a man "subject to irrational mood swings" when he had drunk and used narcotics.
And she assured that no witnesses attended the violent acts because, by nature, marital violence takes place "behind closed doors."
