Johnny Depp has now been granted permission to proceed with his defamation lawsuit against ex-wife Amber Heard.
On August 17, a Virginia judge granted the actor the right to pursue the lawsuit, despite losing his libel lawsuit against The Sun in the UK last year.
Depp sued the publication after it described him as a ‘wife-beater’, but the UK court upheld The Sun’s claims to be ‘substantially true.’
Despite the loss, Depp’s fight to clear his name continued with a $50 million lawsuit filed against Heard in Virginia in March 2019, referring to a 2018 Washington Post editorial where Heard wrote about surviving domestic violence.
While Heard did not directly mention Depp in the write-up, she has previously accused his ex-husband of domestic violence.
Heard then responded with a plea to dismiss Depp’s $50 million lawsuit, arguing the judgment of the UK court should rule the proceedings in her favor because both lawsuits relate to allegations of Depp being an abuser.
According to court documents obtained by People magazine this week, Heard’s plea to dismiss the case was denied by Fairfax County Chief Judge Penney Azcarate. This means that Depp will be able to move forward with the case.
Judge Azcarate argued that while Heard’s editorial and The Sun‘s article may share subjects of alleged abuse, the statements made in each article were ‘inherently different.’
“[Heard] argues she was in privity with The Sun because they both had the same interest in the case,” Azcarate wrote.
“However, for privity to exist, [Heard’s] interest in the case must be so identical with The Sun’s interest such that The Sun’s representation of its interest is also a representation of [Heard’s] legal right.”
“The Sun’s interests were based on whether the statements the newspaper published were false,” the judge argued. “[Heard’s] interests relate to whether the statements she published were false.”
In addition, Azcarate argued that Heard had not been named in Depp’s lawsuit against The Sun because her editorial was published after he filed the lawsuit against the publication.
According to a statement to People magazine, a representative for Heard described Depp’s lawsuit as ‘just the latest of Johnny Depp’s repeated efforts to silence Amber Heard’, claiming his actions ‘prove he is unable to accept the truth of his ongoing abusive behavior.’
The representative added that Heard ‘will not be silenced’ and her team will ‘prevail in defeating’ the lawsuit.