After Johnny Depp vindicated his name at his highly publicized 2022 defamation trial against ex-wife Amber Heard, the former Pirates of the Caribbean star has begun a comeback which includes him serving as the main attraction at the Cannes film festival’s opening night.
Meanwhile, Heard has all but disappeared from the limelight.
According to The Daily Mail reporter Alison Boshoff, the reason for Heard’s absence is that the actress has apparently made the decision to quit acting and raise her two-year-old surrogate daughter Oonagh away from the public eye.
In support of this goal, Heard is said to have relcoated to a secluded home just outside of Madrid, Spain.
“She’s bilingual in Spanish and is happy there, raising her daughter away from all the noise,” a friend of the Drive Angry actress disclosed to The Daily Mail.
“I don’t think she is in any hurry to return to work or to Hollywood,” they added, “but she will probably come back when the time is right, for the right project.”
Further, Boshoff reports that Heard hasn’t worked in quite some time, with her last two roles being Grace Burnham in the 19th century horror piece In the Fire – which she filmed in Sping 2022 and has yet to receive any official release plans – and Mera in Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom – which filmed in 2021 and will finally hit theaters this Christmas.
Heard’s career came crashing down on June 1st, 2022 when a Fairfax County, Virginia jury found that the now-former actress had both defamed Depp and “acted with malice” by publishing her now infamous Washington Post op-ed.
Specifically, the jury was tasked with determining whether or not specific statements found within the op-ed, despite not naming Depp directly, were intended to defame her ex-husband and if Heard was responsible for their publication.
Conversely, in the case of Heard’s $100 Million counter defamation claim, the same jury found in favor of the actress regarding her accusation that Depp’s former Attorney, Adam Waldman, made certain false statements about her to the press while acting as the actor’s representative.
However, in her claim that Waldman’s statements were made “with actual malice,” the jury ruled against her, ultimately awarding the actress only $2 Million in damages.
While Heard has since left the limelight for the Spanish shores, Depp’s career has been on a massive upswing.
Not only has the actor kept busy by appearing as the face of a new Dior campaign and performing live music with musical partner Jeff Beck, but his new film Jeanne Du Barry, in which he portrays King Louis XV, is currently set to hit theaters on May 16th.
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