Johnny Depp and Joelle Rich, the attorney who defended him in his libel case in the United Kingdom, are no longer dating.
A source told in September that the actor, 59, and the London attorney were “dating, but it’s not serious.”
During Depp’s libel action against The Sun, which he lost in November 2020, Rich was a member of his legal team. He filed a lawsuit against the UK newspaper for branding him a “wife-beater,” but the court upheld the publication’s charges as being “basically true” and his ex-wife Amber Heard gave testimony to support the claims. His appeal to overturn the verdict was unsuccessful in March 2021.
The defamation trial against Heard, 36, that took place in Fairfax County, Virginia, this year did not include Rich among his attorneys. He won that case; a jury determined that Heard, despite not naming him specifically in her 2018 op-ed against domestic abuse, had defamed him. Damages totaling more than $10 million were given to Depp. Heard received a $2 million settlement for one of her three defamation countersuit allegations. Right now, they are both appealing to the decisions. Rich was there for some of the Virginia proceedings even though she wasn’t his official attorney during the trial to offer moral support.
On May 2, she was seen grinning as she followed the actor, and the next day, she was seen looking at something on his phone when they were taking a break outside the courtroom. In the courtroom on May 16, Rich gave Camille Vasquez, Depp’s lawyer, a bear embrace. On May 19, Rich was observed leaving the building with Depp and his staff.
According to her bio, Rich has “expertise in libel, privacy, and copyright conflicts” and “helps individuals and families in the public spotlight safeguard their privacy and reputations.” She “works to defend the reputations of [clients] against false and malicious claims in print, online, and on social media.”
The “best is yet to come” for Depp, he stated after the June 1 verdict, and the jury “given me my life back.” Along with that, he expressed gratitude to his “diligent and unyielding legal team who did an incredible job in helping me to share the truth.”
Since then, he has performed on a concert tour in support of his rock record with Jeff Beck, had an appearance on the MTV VMAs broadcast, and will soon be seen in Rihanna’s upcoming fashion show special on Prime Video.
Heard characterized the decision at the time as a loss for women: “I’m devastated that the abundance of proof could not withstand the exaggerated influence, strength, and sway of my ex-husband. What this ruling signifies for other women makes me even more unhappy. A setback, indeed. It turns back the hands of time to a time when a woman who spoke out and out may be publically ridiculed and degraded. It undermines the argument for taking gender-based violence seriously.”
