The initial much-publicized divorce settlement between Johnny Depp and Amber Heard ended with the latter winning $7 million from her ex-husband in the face of her domestic abuse accusations. Heard received a lot of backlash at the time from those claiming she was a “gold-digger,” but the Aquaman actress attempted to prove her doubters wrong by donating the entirety of her settlement to charity. Or so we thought, as Depp has now produced evidence proving that Heard didn’t carry through with her promise.
As shared by The Daily Mail, Depp’s legal team have acquired a letter from the Children’s Hospital of Los Angeles – one of two charities that she pledged to donate her settlement to back in 2016, along with the American Civil Liberties Union – which is addressed to Heard. Sent in June 2019, three years after the divorce, it sees the establishment enquiring about what’s happened to the donation. Another document, meanwhile, confirms that Heard only donated $100,000 to the hospital, instead of the promised $3.5 million.
Depp’s team is arguing that the actress’ charitable pledge was a “sham,” which if true, would mean that she committed perjury – lying in court – and that’s a pretty serious offense. The Pirates of the Caribbean star’s lawyers are said to be labelling this as their “smoking gun” which makes clear that Heard has been lying the whole time.
At this stage, it’s unknown if the actress followed through with her donation to the ACLU as the organization has so far refused to cooperate with multiple subpoenas, despite Depp’s team vigorously pursuing this line of investigation for the past year. In response to this new evidence, though, Heard’s attorney admitted that her client has not completed the donation to date, but that she has “already been responsible for seven figures in donations to charitable causes and intends to continue to contribute and eventually fulfil her pledge.”
For now, then, we’ll just have to wait and see how this latest development in the ongoing legal battles between Johnny Depp and Amber Heard affects things.