(CNN) — Three years after Johnny Depp filed a defamation lawsuit against his ex-wife Amber Heard, the case will go to trial this Monday in Fairfax County Circuit Court in Virginia.
We tell you what you need to know below.
What happened
Depp and Amber met on the set of “The Rum Diary” in 2009, married in 2015 and went on to be mired in a contentious split for months, with allegations of misbehavior on both sides.
In 2016, Heard alleged that Depp had injured her face after throwing a phone at her home in Los Angeles. Depp denied this and was not charged with any crime.
The couple settled their divorce months later, releasing a joint statement that read in part: “Our relationship was intensely passionate and sometimes volatile, but always tied to love.”
In December 2018, Heard wrote an op-ed for the daily The Washington Post entitled “I spoke out against sexual violence, and I faced the anger of our culture. That has to change” in which he wrote “I became a public figure representing domestic abuse, and I felt the full force of the anger of our culture for women who speak”.
“Friends and advisers told me I would never work as an actress again, that I would be blacklisted. A movie I was in gave another actress my part,” Heard wrote. “I had just shot a two-year campaign as the face of a global fashion brand, and the company fired me.”
Depp’s name is not mentioned in the article.
The demand
The following year, Depp filed a $50 million libel lawsuit against Heard.
Their lawsuit contends that, while the actor is not named, “the op-ed clearly dealt with (and was consistently characterized as such by other media outlets) the alleged victimization of Ms. Heard after she publicly accused her ex-husband, Johnny Depp. (Mr Depp), of domestic abuse in 2016, when she appeared in court with an apparently battered face and obtained a temporary restraining order against Mr Depp on May 27, 2016.”
Depp’s lawsuit also claims Heard’s allegations caused him financial losses, including being cut from future “Pirates of the Caribbean” movies after being the face of the franchise for 15 years.
Depp has maintained his innocence over the years and in 2021 he complained in an interview with The Sun that Hollywood is boycotting it.
“A man, an actor in a nasty, messy situation, for the last number of years…” he said “But, you know, I’m moving to where I have to go to do all of that… To get things out to the light”.
Heard’s response to the lawsuit
In 2019 the actress tried to have the lawsuit dismissed.
In an affidavit obtained by CNN and included in Heard’s motion to dismiss the case against her, she said that within a year of their relationship she began witnessing the “Pirates of the Caribbean” star abuse drugs and alcohol.
“Every time he used, I worried about both of us,” Heard said in the filing. “He became a totally different person, often delusional and violent. We called that version of Johnny ‘the Monster.'”
Court documents detail multiple cases of alleged abuse in which Heard claims Depp hit her, threw bottles at her, yelled at her, pushed her, pulled out her hair and at one point strangled her.
In response to the accusations, Depp’s lawyer, Adam Waldman, told CNN: “A hoax faced with the reality of the evidence requires new lies to sustain itself.”
The motion to dismiss was denied.
Heard filed a $100 million libel countersuit against Depp in 2020 that is ongoing.
The last
Over the weekend Heard posted a note about the upcoming trial on his verified social media accounts, writing: “I never named [Depp]Rather, I wrote about the price women pay for speaking out against men in power. I’m still paying that price, but I hope that when this case is over, I can move on and so can Johnny.”
“I have always held a love for Johnny and it pains me greatly to have to relive the details of our past life together in front of the world,” she wrote. “At this time, I acknowledge the continued support I have been fortunate to receive over the years, and in these next few weeks I will lean on him more than ever.”
