Johnny Depp Granted Permission to Proceed with $50 Million Defamation Suit Against Amber Heard

Johnny Depp has been granted to move forward with his defamation lawsuit against Amber Heard.

The Pirates of the Caribbean star is suing his ex-wife over a 2018 Washington Post op-ed where Amber Heard, 35, wrote about surviving domestic violence.

(Heard never named Depp in the op-ed, but she did accuse the actor of domestic violence amid their 2016 split, which he denied.)

As per the court documents obtained by PEOPLE on Tuesday, a Virginia judge granted the actor the right to pursue his lawsuit, denying Heard’s supplemental plea to dismiss the case after Depp lost his U.K. libel lawsuit against British tabloid The Sun.

In November 2020, the 58-year old star lost his case against the British tabloid which called him a “wife-beater.”

The court upheld the outlet’s claims as being “substantially true.”