Johnny Depp is seeking to overturn a damning court ruling that found a British tabloid not liable for calling him a “wife beater.”
Lawyers for the “Pirates of the Caribbean” star filed documents with London’s Court of Appeal this week asking to challenge the November verdict, online court records show.
It’s Depp’s second attempt at reversing the ruling, following an unsuccessful request to appeal with the High Court, the same one that ruled against his long-shot lawsuit. The actor sued News Group Newspapers, publisher of The Sun, for labeling him a “wife beater” in a 2018 column, which relied on 14 allegations of abuse made by ex-wife Amber Heard over the years.
Justice Andrew Nicol wrote in his ruling that the allegations the article was based on were “substantially true.” Depp’s legal team, however, denounced the verdict as “flawed” and vowed to appeal.
“This decision is as perverse as it is bewildering,” attorney Jenny Afia said in a statement at the time. “The judgment is so flawed that it would be ridiculous for Mr. Depp not to appeal this decision.”
The Nov. 2 ruling came months after a highly publicized libel trial that featured explosive testimonies by Depp and Heard themselves as well as numerous witnesses.
The “Aquaman” actress told the court that her “monster” ex-husband attacked her numerous times during their tumultuous relationship between 2013 and 2016.
Heard said he once hurled bottles at her as if they were “grenades or bombs” in a “three-day ordeal of assaults” that she compared to a “hostage situation.” She also accused him of kneeling on her back, hitting her head against the fridge, throwing her onto a table and threatening to kill her “many times.”
Depp acknowledged using cocaine, magic mushrooms and other drugs over the years and admitted that things “got physical” at times. But he has vehemently denied Heard’s domestic violence claims, which he described at the trial as “pedestrian fiction,” while accusing her of being the aggressor in the relationship and faking injuries to incriminate him.
Heard insisted during her testimony in July that she had no reason to lie.
“What woman has ever benefited from being a victim of domestic violence?” she said in court.
Depp has been ordered to pay about $840,000 to The Sun for its legal fees. In the U.S., meanwhile, the “Sweeney Todd” actor is also suing his ex-wife for $50 million over a Washington Post article about domestic violence.
