Johnny Depp settles lawsuit with crew member who alleged actor punched him

Johnny Depp has settled a lawsuit with the crew member who alleged the actor punched him on set in 2017.

In 2018, Greg “Rocky” Brooks, a location manager, claimed Depp attacked him when he tried to enforce permit restrictions while working on a film about the investigation into the murders of Tupac Shakur and The Notorious BIG.

According to court documents filed at the time, Brooks said the incident occurred on 13 April 2017, when City of Lies was being filmed outside the Barclay Hotel in downtown Los Angeles.

Brooks said the production team had permission to film until 7pm outside the hotel and until 10pm inside the building. After getting the curfew extended once, he was then told filming had to wrap up but when he informed the film’s director, Brad Furman, he allegedly replied: “Why don’t you tell that to Johnny Depp?”

According to the legal filing, he instead approached an on-site police officer, but was confronted by Depp, who he claimed shouted: “Who the f*** are you? You have no right to tell me what to do! I don’t give a f*** who you are and you can’t tell me what to do.”

Then, Brooks alleged, Depp punched him twice in the rib cage. Brooks said he managed to keep his “composure”, to which Depp allegedly replied: “I will give you $100,000 ( £84,218) to punch me in the face right now.”

The Pirates of the Caribbean actor’s bodyguards then removed him from the set.

Brooks said Depp’s breath “reeked of alcohol” and he further claimed the actor had been taking drugs on set.

Later, when he refused to sign a declaration that he wouldn’t sue the production house Good Film Productions, Brooks claimed he was fired.

He then sued Depp, Furman and the production company for assault and wrongful termination.

On Monday (11 July), it was reported that Depp’s attorneys had reached a settlement with Brooks, ahead of a civil trial that was scheduled to begin on 25 July in Los Angeles.

A notice of settlement was sent to the judge and the lawsuit is expected to be dismissed once the settlement is completed. The terms of the settlement were not disclosed at the time of writing.

Directed by Brad Furman, and based on Randall Sullivan’s non-fiction book Labryinth, City of Lies follows LAPD detective Russell Poole (Depp) who is investigating the murder of Notorious BIG, also known as Biggie Smalls, a year after the murder of his former friend-turned-rival and fellow rapper Shakur.

The film also stars Forest Whittaker as journalist Jack Johnson, who teams up with Poole to solve Biggie’s murder.

Earlier this year, Depp, 58, won his multi-million dollar defamation lawsuit against ex-wife Amber Heard over a 2018 op-ed for The Washington Post where she described herself as a victim of domestic abuse and spoke of feeling “the full force of our culture’s wrath for women who speak out”.

The Aquaman actor, who has previously said she plans to appeal the verdict, on Friday (8 July) filed court documents seeking a mistrial – alleging one of the jurors served improperly.

Depp’s legal team has counter-filed documents on Monday, arguing Heard’s motion to call for a mistrial was “untimely”, that she had access to the purported new “facts” months ago and that she has failed to cite any unfair prejudice.