Johnny Depp Settles Assault Lawsuit, Still Claims He Did Nothing

Johnny Depp has privately settled an assault lawsuit against him, filed by a crew member of City of Lies. Shortly after a verdict was reached in his highly publicized defamation trial against Amber Heard, Depp was due back in court on charges of assault. The lawsuit was filed by City of Lies location property manager Gregg Brooks, back in 2018. Brooks and Depp were scheduled to appear in court on July 25, 2022, to settle the lawsuit.

The lawsuit alleges that a disagreement between Depp and Brooks about a particular scene, on the set of the movie, turned violent. Brooks says Depp forcefully punched him in the rib cage twice during the altercation, while screaming obscenities at him, and that the attack only stopped when bodyguards escorted Depp away from the scene. Brooks noted that he smelled alcohol on Depp’s breath and that Depp also offered him $100,00 if Brooks punched him in return.

After the incident, Brooks claims he was pressured to sign an agreement stating he would not sue the production. When he refused to sign it, he was fired from the set. Fearing more retribution, he initially downplayed the seriousness of the incident, even hugging it out with Depp and posing for a picture with their arms around one another. However, the lawsuit indicated that Brooks suffered emotional distress from the incident and sought undisclosed monetary damages.

Depp privately settles assault lawsuit

As of July 11, 2022, Depp and Brooks settled the lawsuit, calling off the civil trial scheduled for July 25, 2022. The trial will be held off until January 5, 2023, meaning Depp has until that date to fulfill his end of the settlement agreement and file a request for the case to be dismissed. However, if he fails to uphold the terms of agreement, the case could still be reopened. The specifics of the agreement are being kept private.

When the claims were first made in 2018, Depp and his team denied them, and the lawsuit was largely pushed under the rug until recent months, in which Depp and other witnesses continued to deny the claims. In their version of events, Brooks was the perpetrator of the altercation. They’ve said Brooks was berating several women on set, when Depp came to their defense. This resulted in a verbal altercation that Depp has denied turned physical.

The settlement of this case means Depp and Brooks came to a mutual agreement, or a compromise, on their own and halted the lawsuit from progressing any further. In other words, it means that Depp agreed to pay Brooks off to throw out the lawsuit and have this all go away, rather than let it further progress into the public sphere. It doesn’t mean that Depp is either proven guilty or innocent of the assault. It simply means he settled to avoid yet another court appearance after his trial against Heard, and it’s frustrating to see him sweep this under the rug while riding the PR wave of the extremely biased media and public conversation around the previous trial.

(via: NBC San Diego, featured image: John Phillips/Getty Images)