Circuit Court of Fairfax County, Virginia · No. CL-2019-0002911
Two defamation cases tried as one. He sued over a newspaper op‑ed that never named him; she counterclaimed over statements his lawyer gave to a newspaper. The jury found for him on all three of the statements he sued over, and for her on one of the three she did. Both noticed appeals, and neither was ever heard.
Plaintiff The side that sued
Film actor
He’s an American actor, born in Kentucky in 1963. He got famous in the late 1980s on the TV show 21 Jump Street, then made a long run of films with the director Tim Burton, starting with Edward Scissorhands. Most people know him as Captain Jack Sparrow, who he played in five Pirates of the Caribbean films from 2003 to 2017. That role got him the first of his three Oscar nominations.
Background: Britannica
Defendant The side that was sued, and sued back
Film actor
She’s an American actor, born in Texas in 1986. Her early films include Pineapple Express and Never Back Down, both from 2008, and she’s best known for playing Mera in Aquaman and the other DC superhero films. She met Depp on the set of The Rum Diary. They married in February 2015 and she filed for divorce in May 2016.
Background: Wikipedia
Notes
Built from the Fairfax County Circuit Court record: the complaint and counterclaim, the court’s published letter opinions, the pre‑trial orders and the verdict form.
Two depositions are quoted: hers from the 2016 California divorce, a copy stamped as a filed exhibit, and his from Fairfax in November 2020. Both are cited by page and line.
Trial testimony comes from pool‑feed transcripts, which warn on every front page that they are professionally transcribed but not official; they are cited by date for that reason. What they record was still broadcast from open court — the one part of this record with no provenance problem.
Some exhibits were admitted under seal, and some were unsealed only after trial, in batches. Which is which needs establishing before anything here relies on it.
Neither deposition was unsealed by order, and his is marked confidential pursuant to protective order — much of it was later played in open court, but the copy does not say which parts. They reached the public by being bought from the court clerk, much of that crowdfunded by one side’s supporters: a weaker chain than the docket archive the other cases here are built from, and worth knowing before trusting any of it.
Both parties are public figures who litigated in public and testified under their own names, so no pseudonyms are needed. The testimony includes detailed accounts of violence on both sides; this page will cite and summarize them rather than reproduce them.
Not legal advice, not a finding, and not a verdict. A jury verdict is what a jury found on the questions put to it, which is narrower than what this case is popularly taken to have settled. Where the record does not reach, this page says so and stops.
If something here is missed, misrepresented or unfairly portrayed, let me know. Point me at a filing or record and I will verify it on my end. I actively look to correct, improve and remain unbiased.
No account, no name, no email. The submission stores what you typed, your address and your browser string, to make abuse traceable and for nothing else.
Record reviewed through September 28, 2026. The case ended on December 19, 2022, and nothing has been filed in it since, so this page is complete as to the docket — which is not the same as complete.
Plain English
Words this page uses because the court uses them. Nothing here is special to this case.
The paperwork
How a case moves
The motions that can end things
Tests the court applies
Defamation and damages
