Amber Heard Releases Statement Ahead Of Defamation Trial Brought By Johnny Depp
John F. Trent
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Aquaman actress Amber Heard released a public statement ahead of her upcoming defamation trial brought by Johnny Depp that will take place in Fairfax, Virginia.
Amber Heard speaking at the 2018 San Diego Comic Con International, for “Aquaman”, at the San Diego Convention Center in San Diego, California. Photo Credit: Gage Skidmore from Peoria, AZ, United States of America, CC BY-SA 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
Heard took to Instagram to reveal she would not be on social media or online for “the next several weeks” due to the trial.
She wrote, “I’m going to go offline for the next several weeks. As you may know, I’ll be in Virginia, where I face my ex-husband Johnny Depp in court. Johnny is suing me for an op-ed I wrote in the Washington Post, in which I recounted my experience of violence and domestic abuse.”
“I never named him, rather I wrote about the price women pay for speaking out against men in power. I continue to pay that price, but hopefully when this case concludes, I can move on and so can Johnny,” she continued.
Source: Amber Heard Instagram
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Heard then wrote, “I have always maintained a love for Johnny and it brings me great pain to have to live out the details of our past life together in front of the world.”
“At this time, I recognize the ongoing I’ve been fortunate to receive throughout these years, and in these coming weeks I will be leaning on it more than ever,” she concluded.
Source: Amber Heard Instagram
Depp filed a lawsuit seeking $50 million in damages against Amber Heard back in March 2019. As part of the suit, Depp claimed “this defamation action arises from an op-ed published in the Washington Post by actress Amber Heard.”
The suit further claimed, “In the op-ed Ms. Heard purported to write from the perspective of a ‘public figure representing domestic abuse’ and claimed that she ‘felt the full force of our culture’s wrath for women who speak out’ when she ‘spoke out against sexual violence.’
Source: Aquaman (2018), Warner Bros. Entertainment
While not naming Depp in the op-ed, the suit alleges “the op-ed plainly was about Ms. Heard’s purported victimization after she publicly accused her former husband, Johnny Depp, of domestic abuse in 2016, when she appeared in court with an apparently battered face and obtained a temporary restraining order against Mr. Depp on May 27, 2016. The op-ed depended on the central premise that Ms. Heard was a domestic abuse victim and that Mr. Depp perpetrated domestic violence.”
The suit then clearly states, “The op-ed’s clear implication that Mr. Depp is a domestic abuser is categorically and demonstrably false. Mr. Depp never abused Ms. Heard. Her allegations against him were false when they were made in 2016.”
It goes on to accuse of Heard making up the allegations to promote her career, “They were part of an elaborate hoax to generate publicity for Ms. Heard and advance her career.”
Source: Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald (2018), Warner Bros. Pictures
The lawsuit even alleges that Heard is the true perpetrator of domestic violence.
It notes, “On September 14, 2009, police officers at the Seattle-Tacoma International Airport witnessed Ms. Heard physically assault her then-domestic partner, Tasya van Ree. Ms. Heard grabbed Ms. van Ree by the arm, hit Ms. van Ree in the arm, and yanked Ms. van Ree’s necklace off her neck. Ms. Heard was arrested. She was booked for misdemeanor domestic violence, a mug shot was taken of her, and she spent the night in jail.”
It also accuses Heard of abusing Johnny Depp. The suit states, “Ms. Heard committed multiple acts of domestic violence against Mr. Depp during their marriage. Ms. Heard’s physical abuse of Mr. Depp is documented by eyewitnesses accounts, photographs, and even Ms. Heard’s own admissions under oath.”
Source: Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald (2018), Warner Bros. Pictures
It specifically points to one incident where it claims Heard almost chopped Depp’s finger off. It details, “In one particularly gruesome episode that occurred only one month into their marriage, Ms. Heard shattered the bones in the tip of Mr. Depp’s right middle finger, almost completely cutting it off.”
“Ms. Heard threw a glass vodka bottle at Mr. Depp—one of many projectiles she launched at him in this and other instances. The bottle shattered as it came into contact with Mr. Depp’s hand, and the broken glass and impact severed and shattered Mr. Depp’s finger. Mr. Depp’s finger had to be surgically reattached,” the suit alleges.
Source: Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (2003), Walt Disney Pictures.
Depp previously lost a libel case against News Group Newspapers Ltd., the publisher of the British newspaper The Sun that ran a headline in April 2018 “‘GONE POTTY How Can J K Rowling be “genuinely happy” casting wife beater Johnny Depp in the new Fantastic Beasts film?” Dan Wooton, the Executive Editor of the paper who wrote the article was also a defendant in the case.
Judge Nichols ruled the claim would be dismissed arguing that Depp “has not succeeded in his action for libel.”
Source: The Ninth Gate (1999), Lionsgate
Nichols explained, “Although he has proved the necessary elements of his cause of action in libel, the Defendants have shown that what they published in the meaning which I have held the words to bear was substantially true.”
“I have reached these conclusions having examined in detail the 14 incidents on which the Defendants rely as well as the overarching considerations which the Claimant submitted I should take into account. In those circumstances, Parliament has said that defendant has a complete defence,” Judge Nichols wrote. “It has not been necessary to consider the fairness of the article or the defendants’ ‘malice’ because those are immaterial to the statutory defence of truth.”
Source: Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (2003), Walt Disney Pictures.
Depp’s defamation case against Heard is expected to go to trial today. It will be aired on Court TV.
What do you make of Heard’s statement before the defamation suit begins?
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