The courtroom drama between Johnny Depp and Amber Heard will continue at least for another year after a Virginia State Court judge pushed the defamation trial back between the former Fantastic Beasts and his ex-wife, Aquaman star Amber Heard over claims that she made that the Pirates of the Caribbean actor was physically abusive towards her during their tumultuous, short-lived marriage.
Fairfax County Circuit Court Chief Judge Bruce White announced on Tuesday that the trial, which was set to begin on May 7, will be pushed back to April 11, 2022.
The biggest reason for the delays in the trial have, of course, been due to the COVID-19 pandemic that has thrown all of American society into a tailspin, with the court system being stretched to its breaking point with delays and lack of access to courtrooms. Virginia has decided to prioritize criminal cases over civil ones and the previous May 7 courtroom assignment has been now re-assigned to a murder trial (with a defendant who has been in custody awaiting trial, making that case even more of a priority).
April 11, 2022 is the first available civil jury trial spot on the new Virginia court docket and so that is where the Depp/Heard trial has been reassigned. Ironically, last year, both Heard and Depp were separately petitioning the court over scheduling issues with the then-assigned date, as Heard wanted to make sure that she was available to film Aquaman 2 and Depp wanted to be sure that he had time to film the upcoming third Fantastic Beasts movie. This delay would have cleared both filming schedules. Of course, since that point, Depp lost a separate (but connected) defamation trial in the United Kingdom that saw a judge rule that a newspaper that repeated Heard's claims was reasonable in calling Depp a "wife-beater" and Depp was subsequently dropped from the Fantastic Beasts sequel right away.
The trial concerns a 2018 Washington Post opinion piece (hence the case taking place in Virginia state court) that Heard wrote about her marriage where she alleged that her husband was physically abusive towards her. She never specifically used Depp's name, but a previous court ruling noted that it was evident that she was referring to Depp and so the actor was allowed to purse defamation. He filed a $50 million defamation suit in 2019 and last year, after failing to get the case dismissed, Heard counter-sued for $100 million (as Depp's whole case revolves around positioning Heard as the real abusive one in the marriage).
Depp is appealing the British court ruling and there is now a whole extra year for more legal maneuvering between the two exes.
Source: Deadline
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