Last year, American actor Johnny Depp lost a libel case against The Sun, a newspaper, over an article that labeled Depp a “wife-beater.” The article was published in April 2018, and the suit resulted in a three-week trial during July of last year.

The trial’s judge ruled in favor of News Group Newspapers, The Sun’s publisher, finding that The Sun’s accusation was “substantially true.” The judge found that Depp had assaulted Amber Heard, his ex-wife, on a dozen occasions. Thus, the accusation that Depp was violent towards Heard is not libel because it is substantially true. This verdict was made public in November of the same year, and Depp was asked by Warner Bros. to resign from his role in the Harry Potter spin-off “Fantastic Beasts.”

Since this verdict, Depp appealed to the US Court of Appeal to challenge the ruling with hopes of overturning it. On March 25, the appeal was officially denied after Depp presented some new evidence in the case. The judge who refused his request said the appeal had “no real prospect of success.”