Johnny Depp told to pay $1.14m legal costs for failed libel case

Refused an appeal against court ruling he was a wife beater, Johnny Depp must now pay bill for failed libel case.

Johnny Depp in Pirates from the Caribbean, and outside court in London. Pictures: Supplied/AFP

Johnny Depp has been refused permission to appeal against the findings of a judge who ruled that he was a wife beater.

The actor has also been ordered to pay an initial $1.14 million in legal costs to The Sun for his failed libel action against the newspaper.

Depp sued the newspaper over an article that questioned why JK Rowling was allowing him to appear in the Fantastic Beasts franchise after he was accused of assaulting Amber Heard when they were married. On November 2, after a three-week trial, Mr Justice Nicol ruled that Depp had violently abused Heard, a star of the Aquaman film, 12 times during their relationship. Depp’s lawyers had announced that he would appeal against the judgment, which he said was as “perverse as it is bewildering”.

Mr Justice Nicol has now dismissed Depp’s appeal application, saying he did not believe that the challenge had a “reasonable prospect of success”. In his ruling the judge wrote: “The findings of fact by a first instance tribunal (particularly one, such as myself, who has heard oral evidence) are rarely open to challenge on appeal. In any event, I do not consider that the proposed grounds of appeal have a reasonable prospect of success and there is not some other compelling reason why permission to appeal should be granted.”

Depp’s ex, Amber Heard. Picture: Dan Kitwood/Getty Images

The judge has ordered Depp, 57, to pay The Sun $AU945,000 towards its defence bill by December 7 and a further $AU196,000 by January 22. The remainder of the legal bill will be paid after a detailed assessment of the costs.

The actor can still take the case directly to the Court of Appeal. Depp had sued The Sun’s publisher, News Group Newspapers, and its executive editor, Dan Wootton, over the article in 2018, which ran below the headline: “How can JK Rowling be ‘genuinely happy’ casting wife-beater Johnny Depp in the new Fantastic Beasts film?”

A week after the judgment Depp was forced to resign from the third instalment of the Harry Potter spin-off. The move was regarded as a signal that Depp could struggle to win roles in mainstream films.

Depp is best known for playing Captain Jack Sparrow in Pirates of the Caribbean. He won critical acclaim for his portrayals of Edward Scissorhands, Sweeney Todd and Willy Wonka and his films are estimated to have earned more than $AU13.5 billion at the box office.

In the US Depp is suing Heard for $AU67.86 million in a defamation case over an article she wrote in The Washington Post. Heard, 34, is countersuing for $AU135 million, claiming that he tried to destroy her career.

On Sunday Depp accepted an award from Camerimage, a film festival in Poland, for his latest film, Minamata, in which he plays the war photographer W Eugene Smith — by sending a photograph of himself standing behind metal bars on what appeared to be his private island in the Bahamas.

The Times