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    Johnny Depp v. Amber Heard: What We Know

    Mr. Depp has sued Ms. Heard, his ex-wife, on grounds that she defamed him in an op-ed she wrote for The Washington Post.The defamation trial in Virginia between the actors Johnny Depp and Amber Heard has become a fierce battleground over the truth about their relationship, with both sides accusing the other of repeated domestic abuse in what was an unquestionably tumultuous marriage.Before a seven-person jury in Fairfax County Circuit Court, lawyers have questioned witnesses about the events of what has been described as a whirlwind romance that started on a movie set and soured into a barrage of fights and physical confrontations — the details of which vary widely depending on the account.Mr. Depp, 58, sued Ms. Heard, 35, for defamation after she wrote an op-ed for The Washington Post referring to herself as a “public figure representing domestic abuse.” After more than a year of legal sparring, Ms. Heard then countersued Mr. Depp, alleging that he defamed her when his former lawyer released statements saying her allegations of abuse were a hoax.Many of the allegations being aired in the courtroom have already been heard in a British case — which Mr. Depp lost — in which the actor sued The Sun newspaper for printing a headline that called him a “wife beater.”The trial, which started with opening arguments on April 12, is expected to last about six weeks.Why is Mr. Depp suing Ms. Heard?Mr. Depp’s lawsuit, filed in 2019, revolves around the 2018 op-ed written by Ms. Heard titled, “I spoke up against sexual violence — and faced our culture’s wrath. That has to change.”The op-ed does not mention Mr. Depp by name, but in it, Ms. Heard wrote that two years before the article’s publication, she became a “public figure representing domestic abuse.”In 2016, Ms. Heard was granted a temporary restraining order after showing up to a California court with a bruised face, writing in an application for the order that Mr. Depp had thrown a phone at her face at close range. (The actor denies this.)In the application, Ms. Heard wrote that Mr. Depp had been verbally and physically abusive to her throughout their relationship, detailing a recent incident in which she said he grabbed her by the hair and violently shoved her to the ground. (Mr. Depp wrote in court papers that this was a lie and that she was the one who punched him in the face that night.)Mr. Depp’s lawsuit asserted that Ms. Heard’s abuse allegations were an “elaborate hoax” that cost the actor his career and reputation.“Mr. Depp brings this defamation action to clear his name,” the actor’s lawsuit said.What did Ms. Heard’s op-ed in The Washington Post say?The op-ed says that after she became a “public figure representing domestic abuse,” she started to experience a backlash to her career.“Friends and advisers told me I would never again work as an actress — that I would be blacklisted,” she wrote. “A movie I was attached to recast my role. I had just shot a two-year campaign as the face of a global fashion brand, and the company dropped me.”She wrote that she saw “in real time, how institutions protect men accused of abuse.” Ms. Heard was identified in the op-ed as an ambassador on women’s rights for the American Civil Liberties Union, and in court papers, Ms. Heard said the A.C.L.U. suggested that she write the article and submitted it.Although the trial has become a sprawling inquiry into the couple’s marriage, one of Ms. Heard’s lawyers, Ben Rottenborn, tried to impress upon the jury in open arguments the idea that, ultimately, the case rests on “one piece of paper” — this op-ed.Ms. Heard is countersuing, claiming Mr. Depp had conspired with a lawyer to “attempt to destroy and defame Ms. Heard in the press.”Pool photo by Jim Lo ScalzoWhy is Ms. Heard suing Mr. Depp?The jury is simultaneously considering Ms. Heard’s countersuit against Mr. Depp, which was filed in 2020.Ms. Heard’s defamation claim is against Mr. Depp, but the statements it centers on came from his former lawyer, Adam Waldman, who told the British tabloid The Daily Mail that the actress’s allegations were an “abuse hoax.”Her lawsuit claims Mr. Depp has “authorized and conspired” with Mr. Waldman, who was acting on the actor’s behalf, to “attempt to destroy and defame Ms. Heard in the press.” (Mr. Waldman was not named as a defendant.)What has Mr. Depp said in his testimony?So far, Mr. Depp has testified that he had never struck Ms. Heard, nor any other woman. Instead, he asserted that Ms. Heard was the aggressor in the relationship, engaging in angry tirades and “demeaning name-calling” that would often escalate into physical violence.Johnny Depp’s Libel Case Against Amber HeardCard 1 of 6In the courtroom. More

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    Johnny Depp, Accused of Spousal Abuse, Says Ex-Wife Was the Aggressor

    The actor testified in a defamation case that he filed against his ex-wife, Amber Heard, who has said he often struck her during their relationship.The actor Johnny Depp took the stand for the second day on Wednesday to describe his turbulent marriage to the actress Amber Heard, whom he has sued for defamation, accusing her of “demeaning name-calling” that often escalated into physical violence.“It could begin with a slap, it could begin with a shove, it could begin with throwing a TV remote at my head, throwing a glass of wine in my face,” Mr. Depp told a jury at Fairfax County Circuit Court in Virginia.Ms. Heard has accused Mr. Depp in court papers of repeatedly assaulting her throughout their relationship, from slapping and kicking to dragging her across the floor by her hair and grasping her throat, making her fearful that he would kill her.But over the past few years of legal wrangling in the United States and Britain, Mr. Depp has maintained that Ms. Heard was the one who was violent toward him. In testimony on Tuesday, Mr. Depp denied ever striking Ms. Heard or any woman.“She has a need for conflict, she has a need for violence,” he said of Ms. Heard. “It erupts out of nowhere.”Ms. Heard denied in court papers that she had ever struck Mr. Depp except in self-defense or in defense of her sister.Mr. Depp has sued Ms. Heard for defamation over an op-ed she wrote in 2018 in which she said she was a ​​“public figure representing domestic abuse.” The article did not mention Mr. Depp’s name, but he testified that the time-frame reference in the op-ed was clearly in reference to their marriage, which lasted less than two years.The seven-person jury will also consider Ms. Heard’s countersuit, which asserts that Mr. Depp defamed her when his former lawyer made statements saying that her allegations of domestic abuse were a hoax.During more than five hours of testimony on Wednesday, the jury heard snippets of recorded arguments between the couple. Those included audio of Mr. Depp confronting Ms. Heard about kicking a door into his head the previous night and Ms. Heard asking, “Why are you obsessing over the fact that I can’t remember it the way you remember it?”During his testimony, Mr. Depp strove to present his side of several incidents that have surfaced as their problems in their relationship became public, including the time Mr. Depp’s middle finger was severed. The injury occurred in 2015 while the couple was in Australia for the filming of the fifth “Pirates of the Caribbean” movie.Mr. Depp told the jury that, at the time, Ms. Heard was angry about a meeting she had with a lawyer about a potential postnuptial agreement and threw two vodka bottles at him, one of which missed while another shattered into his hand, causing his finger to bleed “like Vesuvius.” He testified that he then experienced a “nervous breakdown” and used his bloody finger to write on the walls messages that “represented lies that she told me.”Ms. Heard, who is expected to take the stand later in the trial, has given a very different account of the incident in Australia, writing in court papers that Mr. Depp became violent with her during an argument about his drug use. She has said that at one point he grabbed her by the neck and collarbone and slammed her into a countertop, then hit her with the back of his hand and slammed a phone against a wall until it “smashed into smithereens,” injuring his finger.Upon her return to Los Angeles, Ms. Heard wrote in court papers that “I had a busted lip, a swollen nose and cuts all over my body.”Johnny Depp’s Libel Case Against Amber HeardCard 1 of 6In the courtroom. More

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    Cardi B Awarded $1.25 Million in Libel Lawsuit Against Blogger Tasha K

    A federal jury awarded the rapper Cardi B around $4 million in a libel lawsuit against a celebrity gossip blogger who had posted videos in 2018 claiming that she was a prostitute who had contracted sexually transmitted infections and used cocaine.Cardi B, whose real name is Belcalis Almanzar, had sued the celebrity gossiper, known as Tasha K, in 2019 for posting more than 20 videos that spread “malicious rumors” about the rapper, according to the lawsuit, which was filed in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia, where Tasha K lives.The jury found Tasha K, whose real name is Latasha Kebe, liable on two counts of slander and one count each of libel and invasion of privacy, according to a verdict filed on Monday.The jury awarded Ms. Almanzar $1.25 million on Monday and an additional $2.8 million on Tuesday, according to separate verdicts filed on Monday and Tuesday. The award includes $25,000 for medical expenses and around $1.3 million to cover the rapper’s legal fees.Ms. Kebe had also posted in 2018 that Ms. Almanzar had herpes outbreaks in her mouth and that she would give birth to a child with intellectual disabilities.Ms. Almanzar, 29, testified in court this month that she “felt extremely suicidal” after Ms. Kebe posted the videos, adding that “only an evil person could do that,” Lisa Moore, a lawyer for Ms. Almanzar, said on Monday.In the lawsuit, the rapper’s lawyers said that the content would damage her reputation with her fans and affect her business prospects. Cardi B, a Grammy-winning rapper from the Bronx, found fame in 2017 with her song “Bodak Yellow,” which immortalized her propensity for making “money moves.”Ms. Kebe’s claims have helped her amass millions of views on Twitter, Instagram and her YouTube channel, unWinewithTashaK. Most of the content can still be viewed online, even though the rapper sent Ms. Kebe a cease-and-desist letter a few months after Ms. Kebe first posted about her in 2018, according to the lawsuit.Ms. Almanzar’s lawyers said Ms. Kebe was “obsessed with slandering” the rapper, and that she posted the content because it got more views than her other posts, according to the lawsuit. Ms. Almanzar’s lawyers said that the rapper was not a prostitute, had never had herpes and had never used cocaine.In a statement on Tuesday, Ms. Kebe’s lawyers, Olga Izmaylova and Sadeer Sabbak, said they disagreed with the verdict and planned to appeal it.On Monday afternoon, Ms. Kebe said on Twitter that “My Husband, Attorney’s, & I fought really hard,” adding, “it’s only up from here.”Ms. Almanzar had filed the lawsuit against both Ms. Kebe and Starmarie Ebony Jones, a guest on Ms. Kebe’s YouTube channel who had claimed to be a former friend of the rapper.Ms. Jones was not included in the verdict on Monday because she moved to New York after Ms. Almanzar sued her, the rapper’s lawyers said. The lawyers filed another lawsuit against her in New York, where she was found liable last year on counts of libel, slander and invasion of privacy. A lawyer for Ms. Jones could not immediately be reached for comment on Monday night.This case was not the first time the rapper found herself in court. She was indicted in Queens in 2019 in connection with a fight in a strip club the year before. The case is still ongoing. More

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    Cardi B Awarded $1.25 Million in Libel Lawsuit Against Celebrity Gossip Blogger

    The rapper sued the YouTuber Tasha K in 2019 after she posted a series of videos claiming that Cardi B was a prostitute.A federal jury on Monday awarded the rapper Cardi B $1.25 million in damages in a libel lawsuit against a celebrity gossip blogger who had posted videos in 2018 claiming that she was a prostitute who had contracted sexually transmitted infections and used cocaine.Cardi B, whose real name is Belcalis Almanzar, had sued the celebrity gossiper, known as Tasha K, in 2019 for posting more than 20 videos that spread “malicious rumors” about the rapper, according to the lawsuit, which was filed in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia, where Tasha K lives.The jury found Tasha K, whose real name is Latasha Kebe, liable on two counts of slander and one count each of libel and invasion of privacy, according to a verdict filed on Monday.Ms. Kebe had also posted in 2018 that Ms. Almanzar had herpes outbreaks in her mouth and that she would give birth to a child with intellectual disabilities.Ms. Almanzar, 29, testified in court this month that she “felt extremely suicidal” after Ms. Kebe posted the videos, adding that “only an evil person could do that,” Lisa Moore, a lawyer for Ms. Almanzar, said on Monday.In the lawsuit, the rapper’s lawyers said that the content would damage her reputation with her fans and affect her business prospects. Cardi B, a Grammy-winning rapper from the Bronx, found fame in 2017 with her song “Bodak Yellow,” which immortalized her propensity for making “money moves.”Ms. Kebe’s claims have helped her amass millions of views on Twitter, Instagram and her YouTube channel, unWinewithTashaK. Most of the content can still be viewed online, even though the rapper sent Ms. Kebe a cease-and-desist letter a few months after Ms. Kebe first posted about her in 2018, according to the lawsuit.Ms. Almanzar’s lawyers said Ms. Kebe was “obsessed with slandering” the rapper, and that she posted the content because it got more views than her other posts, according to the lawsuit. Ms. Almanzar’s lawyers said that the rapper was not a prostitute, had never had herpes and had never used cocaine.Ms. Kebe’s lawyers did not immediately respond to emails or phone calls on Monday.On Monday afternoon, Ms. Kebe said on Twitter that “My Husband, Attorney’s, & I fought really hard,” adding, “it’s only up from here.”Ms. Almanzar had filed the lawsuit against both Ms. Kebe and Starmarie Ebony Jones, a guest on Ms. Kebe’s YouTube channel who had claimed to be a former friend of the rapper.Ms. Jones was not included in the verdict on Monday because she moved to New York after Ms. Almanzar sued her, the rapper’s lawyers said. The lawyers filed another lawsuit against her in New York, where she was found liable last year on counts of libel, slander and invasion of privacy. A lawyer for Ms. Jones could not immediately be reached for comment on Monday night.This case was not the first time the rapper found herself in court. She was indicted in Queens in 2019 in connection with a fight in a strip club the year before. The case is still ongoing. More