Do we like Amber Heard?
Our score: 6 out of 10. No harmful words or company found and real giving to women's causes, but a courtroom record that cuts both ways keeps her in the middle.
Amber Heard's public story is mostly one trial. Johnny Depp sued her for $50 million over a 2018 Washington Post op-ed. In June 2022 a Virginia jury awarded him more than $10 million, finding for him on all three of his defamation claims. The same jury gave her $2 million on one counterclaim, so nobody walked away clean.
The judge cut the punitive damages under state law, leaving Heard owing about $8.35 million, and entered judgment on 24 June 2022. Her representative said she planned to appeal. In December she settled for $1 million, which Depp said he'd give to charity. She said it was “not an act of concession” and wrote “I never chose this. I defended my truth.” Depp's lawyers said the verdict stayed fully in place.
The money fight didn't end there. Her insurer, New York Marine, sued her over whether it had to cover the defamation case, and she countersued. In November 2024 the Ninth Circuit upheld the dismissal of her counterclaims for breach of contract and bad faith. That's a contract dispute, not another verdict on the Depp saga.
Nothing new on her lately, honestly. Her latest public moment was the Sundance documentary Silenced in January 2026, about women sued for defamation after speaking out about alleged abuse. She said “I don't want to use my voice anymore. That's the problem.” Fans of hers will read that as grief and critics as spin, and you can decide which.
The real good stuff is the giving. In 2016 she said a $7 million payment would be split equally between the ACLU, with a focus on stopping violence against women, and Children's Hospital Los Angeles, where she'd volunteered for a decade. That's a big cheque to hand over when nobody was making her.
So where does that leave us? The good-person test is a close call because one jury sided with Depp on the big claims and gave her a win on one, and people read that very differently. She passes on harm and has a long record of backing women's causes, so we lean yes with the caveat that the courtroom story is murky.