New details have emerged about what Johnny Depp is doing with the $1 million he received from ex Amber Heard in the settlement of their defamation case.
A source close to the Pirates of the Caribbean actor told E! News Depp has selected five charities that will each receive a $200,000 donation.
Among the organizations is the Make a Film Foundation, which Depp has worked with in the past. The nonprofit fulfills the wishes of children with serious or life-threatening medical conditions by pairing them with actors, writers, directors and producers to work on a project.
The three-time Oscar nominee is also giving a portion of the settlement to The Painted Turtle, an organization founded by Paul Newman that provides a camp experience for kids with chronic and life-threatening illnesses, as well as to Red Feather, which works with Indigenous communities to create housing solutions.
The final sums will go to Marlon Brando's non-profit the Tetiaroa Society—which funds conservation efforts, scientific research and education programs for local schools to drive island sustainability—and the Amazonia Fund Alliance, which is a group of nonprofits and sustainability-driven companies that aim to protect preservations efforts in Indigenous communities throughout the Amazon.
The update comes nearly six months after Heard and Depp reached a settlement in their defamation case, which included her paying him $1 million. At the time, Depp's attorneys expressed his intent to donate the payment to charities and how he was happy to move forward from the case.
"We are pleased to formally close the door on this painful chapter for Mr. Depp, who made clear throughout this process that his priority was about bringing the truth to light," his attorneys, Benjamin Chew and Camille Vasquez, told E! News at the time. "The jury's unanimous decision and the resulting judgement in Mr. Depp's favor against Ms. Heard remain fully in place."
Last June, after a headline-making trial, a jury in Virginia found that Heard was liable for defaming Depp in a 2018 Washington Post op-ed where she wrote that she was a "public figure representing domestic abuse." Although Depp was not mentioned by name in the piece, he alleged the op-ed from Heard—whom he wed in 2015 and finalized his divorce from in 2017—damaged his career.
The Black Mass star was awarded $10 million in compensatory damages and $5 million in punitive damages (with the punitive damages later being reduced to $350,000 per the state's limit) as a result of the case.
Heard filed an appeal that July, and Depp appealed the $2 million she was awarded after the jury found that she was also defamed when one of his former lawyers called her abuse allegations a "hoax". However, the Aquaman actress later spoke about what led her to make "a very difficult decision" to settle the case.
"Now I finally have an opportunity to emancipate myself from something I attempted to leave over six years ago and on terms I can agree to," she wrote in part of a December Instagram post. "I have made no admission. This is not an act of concession. There are no restrictions or gags with respect to my voice moving forward. I make this decision having lost faith in the American legal system, where my unprotected testimony served as entertainment and social media fodder."