Johnny Depp Selects Charities for $1M Settlement from Ex-Wife Amber Heard

Hollywood star Johnny Depp has chosen the charities he plans to donate the $1 million settlement he received from his ex-wife Amber Heard stemming from their highly publicized defamation trial.

On Tuesday, a source close to the "Dark Shadows" star confirmed that Depp has chosen five charities to donate the settlement funds, which include the Make-A-Film Foundation, The Painted Turtle, Red Feather, Marlon Brando’s Tetiaroa Society charity, and the Amazonia Fund Alliance.

Depp plans to donate $200,000 to each of the five charities, according to the source.

A Virginia jury found both Heard and Depp liable for defamation in June 2022. The former couple later came to a settlement in December with Heard agreeing to pay Depp $1 million in damages.

At the time, Depp’s lawyers said in a statement that he pledged to donate the settlement money from Heard to charity.

In June 2022, the Virginia jury found that Depp had been defamed by three statements in a 2018 Washington Post op-ed she wrote about her experience with domestic abuse and described herself as “a public figure representing domestic abuse”.

Depp was seeking $50 million in damages, but the jury has awarded him $15 million — $10 million in compensatory damages and $5 million in punitive damages. However, Judge Penney Azcarate reduced the punitive damages figure to $350,000, the maximum allowed in the state, which makes Depp’s total haul around $10.4 million.

The jury, consisting of five men and two women, also concluded that Heard was defamed by a lawyer for Depp who accused her of creating a detailed hoax surrounding the abuse allegations. She was awarded $2 million in compensatory damages to Heard, but $0 in punitive damages.

Ultimately, the damages that Heard owed to Depp were reduced to $1 million in December, when the former couple came to a settlement agreement.

Heard posted a statement on her verified Instagram page at the time announcing that they’d reached a settlement, writing that she had “made no admission” and that the settlement is “not an act of concession.”

“I make this decision having lost faith in the American legal system, where my unprotected testimony served as entertainment and social media fodder,” Heard said.