Featured Image Credit: Law And Crime Network
Topics: Amber Heard, Johnny Depp, Celebrity, US News
Emily Brown
Topics: Amber Heard, Johnny Depp, Celebrity, US News
Amber Heard told the court she believes she's been labelled a 'liar' in relation to Johnny Depp while giving testimony this week.
Heard returned to the stand in Fairfax, Virginia yesterday (17 May), where Depp's lawyer called attention once again to the charity donation she pledged in the wake of her divorce from Depp in 2016.
The Aquaman star promised to divide her $7 million divorce settlement between the Children’s Hospital Los Angeles and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), but in court yesterday admitted she had not fulfilled the promise of giving $3.5m to each organisation.
Her failure to fulfil the promise prompted Depp's lawyer to question whether Heard had made the pledge to get 'praise', 'good press' and to 'seem altruistic publicly', to which Heard argued that 'wasn't [her] interest'.
She went on to say her interest was in 'clearing [her] name' and suggested she had been branded dishonest because Depp was more well known to the public.
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Heard said: "At the time, I was being called a ‘liar’ and my motives were being questioned. I did see it as important to clear that up. I wanted to make a statement to make sure there was not any doubt. That I couldn’t be labelled these things just because Johnny was the bigger star and had more publicity reach.”
Explaining why she had not yet fulfilled her pledges to charity, Heard claimed the legal costs of Depp's lawsuit against her had prevented her from doing so.
Depp filed his $50m defamation lawsuit in March 2019 following an op-ed written by Heard in The Washington Post the previous year.
Heard claimed she still 'fully intend[s] on honouring all of' her pledges, adding: "I would love him to stop suing me so I can.”
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Last month, Terence Dougherty, the chief operating officer and general counsel of the ACLU, gave testimony in a pre-recorded deposition filmed in December in which he claimed Heard had donated $1.3m the charity at the time. Dougherty also said Heard had sent an email to the charity saying the ACLU should not issue a press release announcing the pledge.
Though Heard implied belief Depp has more public support in the trial, Depp has previously claimed he 'lost' the 'second the allegations were made' against him.
"I lost because that is not a thing that anyone is going just put on your back for a short period of time. I will live with that for the rest of my life," the actor told the court in April.