Johnny Depp loses libel case against The Sun, ex-wife Amber Heard, forced out of movie role
Johnny Depp has labeled a high court ruling that he was a “wife beater” as “surreal” as he revealed Warner Brothers had asked him to quit his lead role in the upcoming Fantastic Beasts movie.
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Warner Bros asked Johnny Depp to quit his lead role in the third instalment of the Fantastic Beasts franchise after London’s High Court found he was a “wife beater”.
The movie studio parted ways with Depp following his disastrous defamation case against The Sun newspaper.
Now the actor’s career is in doubt after he agreed to walk away from playing the character Grindelwald.
Depp was the main character in the second instalment of the fantasy series, based on the books by Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling, which pulled in $900 million AUD at the cinemas.
The 57-year-old revealed the news in a typed note that he posted to Instagram on Saturday morning Australian time.
“I wish to let you know that I have been asked to resign by Warner Bros. from my role as Grindelwald in Fantastic Beasts and I have respected and agreed to that request,” he wrote.
“The surreal judgment of the court in the UK will not change my fight to tell the truth and I confirm that I plan to appeal.”
Depp’s battle with The Sun newspaper at the Royal Courts of Justice on The Strand was described as the biggest “libel case of the 21st century” and drew worldwide attention.
The actor had sued the newspaper over an article in 2018 where executive editor Dan Wootton had asked how J.K. Rowling could be “genuinely happy” that he was in the role of Grindelwald when he had been accused of being a “wife beater”.
The author, whose Harry Potter books have sold 500 million copies, released a statement on December 7, 2017 defending Depp after Heard had made allegations of domestic violence.
“Based on our understanding of the circumstances, the filmmakers and I are not only comfortable sticking with our original casting, but genuinely happy to have Johnny playing a major character in the movies,” Rowling wrote at the time.
However, Justice Andrew Nicol found that the article was “substantially true”, accepting his ex-wife Amber Heard’s testimony.
Heard, 34, had accused Depp of 14 incidents of domestic violence and Justice Nicol found that 12 of them were true.
Depp spent more than 20 hours in the witness box where he described himself as a “southern gentleman”.
However, Heard claimed that he had repeatedly abused her, including during a three-day “hostage situation” in a Gold Coast mansion owned by Mick Doohan.
The case also spent a considerable amount of time discussing who was responsible for faeces left on a bed, including photographs that were shown to the court.
Depp had claimed that his ex-wife had left the faeces after an argument with him, labelling her “Amber Turd.”
Justice Nicol found that one of the couple’s dogs, Pistol or Boo, was to blame rather than Heard.
It also heard that Depp had sent a text message to his friend Paul Bettany saying: “Let’s drown her before we burn her. I will f*** her burnt corpse afterwards to make sure she’s dead.”
He also admitted to drug use, and that he had used his severed finger to draw the words “I love you” in blood on a mirror following one argument.
And the court was also told claims that Heard had affairs with Tesla owner Elon Musk and James Franco, which she denied, were a tactic by Depp’s legal team to discredit her.
The case centred around Depp’s behaviour while he was on the Gold Coast filming the Pirates of the Caribbean, a Disney franchise.
The former king of Hollywood, who earned and lost $1 billion (AUD), has vowed to continue his battle against Heard.
Along with the London appeal, Depp also has a $71 million (AUD) defamation case against Heard directly for an opinion piece she wrote for the Washington Post that did not name him.
Heard, who starred in Aquaman, has countersued for $142 million (AUD) claiming that Depp had organised an online campaign to smear her name.
Originally published as Johnny Depp loses libel case against The Sun, ex-wife Amber Heard, forced out of movie role