Actor Amber Heard found guilty of defaming her ex-husband, Johnny Depp, by a jury in the United States.

 In a closely watched six-week trial that contained raw and graphic evidence and testimony revealing the former Hollywood couple's strained relationship, a US jury concluded on Wednesday that actress Amber Heard defamed ex-husband Johnny Depp.

In several areas of Heard's counter-suit against Depp, the Virginia jury ruled in her favour. 

Depp received $15 million in damages from Heard, according to the jury. Heard was given $2 million in damages by the panel. 

Depp, the 58-year-old Pirates of the Caribbean star, sued Heard for $50 million, claiming that she defamed him in a newspaper opinion piece when she dubbed herself "a public figure symbolising domestic abuse."

Heard, 36, countersued Depp for $100 million, claiming that his lawyer slandered her by calling her charges a "hoax." 

Depp has denied beating Heard or any other woman, claiming that she was the one who made their relationship violent. 

Depp and Heard met on the set of The Rum Diary in 2011 and married in February 2015. Two years later, their divorce was finalised. 

The legal lawsuit revolves around a December 2018 Washington Post opinion post in which Heard made the allegation concerning domestic abuse. Although Depp's name was not mentioned in the piece, his lawyer told jurors that it was apparent that Heard was referring to him.

Heard's lawyers contended for six weeks that she had expressed the truth and that her words were protected by the First Amendment of the United States Constitution. 

Jurors were shown gruesome images of Depp's bloody finger and listened to recordings of the couple's clashes throughout the trial. When Heard hurled a vodka bottle at him in 2015, he claims the top of his finger was severed. 

Heard denied hurting Depp's finger and claimed that Depp sexually abused her with a liquor bottle later that night. She claimed she merely struck him to protect herself or her sister. 

The testimony was widely livestreamed on social media, attracting massive viewers eager to learn more about the couple's tumultuous relationship.

Depp, who was once one of Hollywood's top stars, claimed that Heard's charges cost him "everything." Depp was replaced in the Fantastic Beasts film trilogy, a Harry Potter spinoff, and a new Pirates feature was put on hold. 

Depp lost a libel action against the Sun, a British tabloid, for calling him a "wife beater" less than two years ago. Heard was frequently abused, according to a London High Court judge. 

Because the Washington Post is printed in Fairfax County, Virginia, Depp's lawyers filed the US complaint there.