By JAMI GANZ | jganz@nydailynews.com | New York Daily News
Amber Heard offered a rare glimpse into her post-Hollywood life this week, nearly two years after she and ex-husband Johnny Depp finished a weeks-long defamation trial.
The “Aquaman” star, who celebrated her 38th birthday on Monday, shared a snap of herself grinning and ringing in the occasion with a glass of Champagne, captioned, “Champagne kind of birthday.”
Heard has largely stayed out of the spotlight since the spring 2022 trial.
The Virginia trial centered on a 2018 op-ed Heard had penned for The Washington Post in which she described herself as a “public figure representing domestic abuse.” Though he was not identified by name in the piece, Depp sued her for $50 million for defamation.
Heard, who had previously accused Depp of domestic abuse, countersued for $100 million. She attributed the countersuit to Depp’s former lawyer having discounted her allegations as a hoax.
In the end, the judge awarded Depp $10 million in compensatory damages and $5 million in punitive damages, which were ultimately capped by the state of Virginia; the judge also awarded $2 million to Heard’s counterclaim. The former couple dropped their individual appeals and reached a settlement that saw Heard paying $1 million to Depp.
Heard in late 2022 said that the settlement was “not an act of concession” and that she “made no admission.”
“I defended my truth and in doing so my life as I knew it was destroyed,” she wrote on Instagram at the time, pointing to the “vilification” to which she was subjected on social media. She equated the treatment to “an amplified version of the ways in which women are re-victimised when they come forward.”
