Washington Post adds editor's note to Amber Heard's legally defamatory op-ed

The Washington Post on Thursday added an editor's note to the op-ed written by Amber Heard that was at the center of the defamation trial between Johnny Depp and his ex-wife.

The note explains that a Virginia jury on Wednesday found Heard liable on three counts stemming from the allegations of abuse at the hands of Depp she made in the op-ed, which were "false and defamatory."

The note quotes the passages from Heard's article that wound up at the center of the $50 million lawsuit and were determined to be defamatory against Depp.

(1) "I spoke up against sexual violence – and faced our culture's wrath. That has to change," the online title of the article, which Heard claimed she did not write.

(2) "Then two years ago, I became a public figure representing domestic abuse, and I felt the full force of our culture's wrath for women who speak out."

(3) "I had the rare vantage point of seeing, in real time, how institutions protect men accused of abuse."

The essay was, it was uncovered during the six-week trial in Fairfax, Virginia, ghostwritten for Heard by the ACLU, an organization for which Heard acted as an "ambassador on women's rights."

Though the piece did not explicitly identify Depp, the actor's legal team successfully made the case that the op-ed clearly implicated him as his ex-wife's abuser. 

The jury awarded Depp roughly $10.4 million in damages, and Heard $2 million in damages for defamatory statements made by Depp's former lawyer Adam Waldman. 

Heard and her legal team now have 30 days to appeal the verdict, which her lawyer, Elaine Bredehoft, says she certainly plans to do.