Amber Heard may not be in a position to pay Johnny Depp's multi-million dollar judgement.
On June 1, a jury in Virginia awarded Depp $15 million in damages after ruling that Heard was liable of defaming the Pirates of the Caribbean star. The judge presiding over Depp's defamation trial later reduced punitive damages to the state's legal limit of $350,000, making the actor's total damages $10.4 million. (Heard, who countersued her ex-husband, was awarded $2 million in compensatory damages.)
While speaking about the highly publicized legal battle during a June 2 appearance on Today, Heard's attorney Elaine Charlson Bredehoft shared her thoughts on whether the Aquaman actress will be able to pay the judgement. She told host Savannah Guthrie, "Oh, no, absolutely not."
Bredehoft also reflected on the trial, which lasted more than six weeks, saying that "a number of things were allowed in this court that should not have been allowed." She added that Heard was "demonized" during the legal proceedings and claimed social media may have played a part in the jury's decision.
"They went home every night," she said. "They have families. The families are on social media. We had a ten-day break in the middle because of the judicial conference. There's no way they couldn't have been influenced by it. I was against cameras in the courtroom, and I went on record with that and had argued against it because of the sensitive nature of this, but it made it a zoo."
Depp initially sued Heard for $50 million over a 2018 op-ed for The Washington Post in which described herself as a "public figure representing domestic abuse." Though Depp's name was never used in the essay, his lawyers argued in court documents that Heard's op-ed was a piece of an "elaborate hoax."
In a $100 million countersuit against Depp, Heard alleged that her ex "unlawfully targeted" her in an "ongoing harassment and online smear campaign."
According to Bredehoft, Heard "absolutely" plans to appeal the jury's verdict of siding with Depp in the case.
"She has some excellent grounds for it," Bredehoft said, adding there was a "number of the evidentiary issues" in the trial. "There was so much evidence that did not come in."
(Today and E! are part of the NBCUniversal family.)