Angie Kent, a reality TV star, has spoken out against Johnny Depp’s defamation action against ex-wife Amber Heard.
Depp sued Heard, with whom he was married from 2015 to 2017, for defamation after she falsely alleged he was a domestic abuser in an opinion post for The Washington Post in 2018.
On Wednesday, the 58-year-old Pirates of the Caribbean star won the lawsuit in a Virginia court, and Heard, 36, was forced to pay her ex-husband more than $10 million.
‘What a waste of a tank of gas,’ Kent told The Daily Telegraph following the decision.
‘And he wasn’t even present for [the verdict], he was in the UK, [when] the whole case was that he was losing work because of her story.’
She continued: ‘I am beside myself. This makes a joke of the whole situation and will deter other people from speaking up about abuse.’
‘I think there are good and bad humans in the world and I think that they have both done really questionable things…’ Kent said.
The court ordered the Aquaman star to pay him $15 million in damages, with $10 million in compensatory and $5 million in punitive damages.
Due to Virginia’s cap on such awards, the latter amount was lowered to $350,000.
However, the jury judged her partially justified and gave her $2 million, but the result was largely in favor of Depp.
On Wednesday, Depp’s lawyer Camille Vasquez said the jury’s decision ‘confirms what we have claimed from the outset,’ stressing that the charges that he assaulted Heard were baseless and libelous.
Ms. Vasquez, who spoke outside the court in Fairfax, Virginia, was overjoyed with the jury’s decision, which came after a six-week trial and 12 hours of deliberation.
They ruled in Depp’s favor, concluding that Heard had defamed him in a 2018 op-ed in the Washington Post.
Depp was not present for the verdict because he was in England performing with his band.
Heard tried to maintain her composure but remained calm.
She published a statement shortly after, expressing her “heartbreak” and condemning it as a “setback for women and free speech.”
Source: dailymail.co.uk
