Amber Heard changes her mind and will not appeal the libel verdict against Johnny Depp

Amber Heard arrives at the Virginia court where she heard the verdict of the trial against Depp, last June. BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI (AFP)

End point to a crude judicial battle.

The actress Amber Heard has announced this Monday morning that she will not go ahead with the appeal that she filed after losing a defamation trial against her ex-husband, Johnny Depp.

"I have made this decision after losing faith in the legal system of the United States, where my testimony fed the show and social networks," Heard, 36, said on Instagram.

The interpreter assured that she reached an agreement to end the case, but that this fact does not admit or concede that she lied about having been a victim of abuse, one of the conclusions of the trial held in Virginia last June.

The amount of the alleged agreement that Heard would have reached with Depp has not been disclosed.

In the summer, the jury found that the two had defamed the other.

The great victory was for the protagonist of

, who was awarded more than 10 million dollars that his ex-wife had to pay him as compensation.

Judge Penny Azcarate also found that statements by Depp's lawyer damaged the reputation of Heard, who was awarded $2 million.

The trial lasted six weeks that caused enormous media attention due to the open battle between two Hollywood figures.

At the bottom of the fight was an opinion article written in 2018 by the actress in

, in the heat of the incipient #MeToo movement, where Heard told her version as a victim of sexist violence at the hands of Depp, to whom she was married.

In late July, Heard's legal team appealed the sentence to an appeals court.

"We believe that the court made errors that prevented a fair verdict and in accordance with the First Amendment [the constitutional article that protects freedom of expression]," a representative of the actress said then.

For the case to go ahead, the actress had to pay a bail of 8.3 million dollars.

This despite the fact that one of her lawyers, Elaine Bredehoft, assured that she did not have enough money to cover what the court had ordered.

Depp, for her part, had also appealed to protest the amount she had to pay.

After discrediting the US judicial system, which turned the fight with Depp into a media circus, Heard used as a reference the favorable sentence she obtained in a UK court in November 2020. "I was vindicated by a robust, impartial and fair, where I was protected from having to give the worst moments of my testimony in front of the world press”, he affirms.

Instead, in the Virginia court, she found herself in a fight where “power and popularity” mattered more than due process.

“Even if my appeal were successful, the best outcome would be a retrial, where the jury would have to reconsider the evidence.

I just can't go through it a third time,” she notes.

Heard puts an end to the case this Monday after a "very difficult decision".

The details of the trial were closely followed by the world press.

Many of the incidents experienced by the couple were later amplified on the Internet, which served as the scene of a cyber battle between supporters of each actor.

Heard, however, got the worst of it, facing a huge campaign of negative and humiliating messages.

“The debasement that I have encountered on social media is an amplified version of the ways in which women are revictimized when they step forward to speak out.

Now I finally have the opportunity to free myself from something that I wanted to leave six years ago, the way I want to do it, "says the actress.

interpreter

turns the page.

"By reaching an agreement I am also choosing the freedom to have my time at work that helped me heal after my divorce," she adds on the social network.

This, however, does not mean that she will stop talking about “her truth about him”.

“My voice will always be my most valuable asset,” Herad says.