Johnny Depp recently requested a pause on his upcoming Virginia-based lawsuit that will feature Amber Heard, but that doesn’t mean the lawsuits featuring the two celebrities are going away. Quite the contrary, in fact. This week, Heard filed her own countersuit, saying Johnny Depp and his team have embarked upon “a smear campaign.”
Amber Heard filed the lawsuit back in August, but the news is just now making its way down the pipeline. Her lawsuit is going harder than those Depp’s lawyers have filed, as a new report indicates she is asking for $100 million in damages, mentioning in her filing that she feels the upcoming lawsuit Johnny Depp has filed in the U.S. just continues his “abuse.” In his filing, Depp was only asking for half that amount in compensatory damages.
The filing also indicates that Amber Heard’s legal team believes that Johnny Depp and his team hired bots to troll her. From the counterfiling obtained by Page Six, she believes he hired “dozens if not hundreds of bots” to control the narrative online. Her team is even accusing Depp of having orchestrated several Change.org petitions, including one that was trying to get her booted from Aquaman 2, though it’s worth noting Aquaman 2 only recently even landed a release date and that’s not coming until 2022. Not much else is known about the movie yet.
On his end, Johnny Depp has also accused Amber Heard of smearing his name when she penned an op ed in The Washington Post not outing him specifically as an abuser, but that he believes made it pretty clear she was alleging he was an abuser. That case hinges on defamation and is expected to move forward in Virginia, where Amber Heard also filed her countersuit.
Meanwhile, in the UK libel case against The Sun, Amber Heard was more specific when she took the stand and did make claims against Johnny Depp, accusing him of abuse. Depp also accused Heard of pooping in their bed and other incidents during the course of their marriage together. Amber Heard has admitted to punching Depp, but she also says he took her “hostage” while filming one of the Pirates of the Caribbean movies. There’s been a lot of back and forth.
The Sun lawsuit is still awaiting a verdict. Meanwhile, the separate U.S. lawsuit should have been moving forward right around now. However, in the last week Johnny Depp’s team inputted a request on his second defamation case that the case press pause for now. The reason is that the high-profile actor is expected to beginning filming on the upcoming Fantastic Beasts 3, which as of yet does not have an official title.
The lawsuit has already done some of the legwork, as Amber Heard saw herself switching legal teams as part of the defamation case. Later, text messages that were a part of discovery on the defamation case also came into play on the libel case. Still, we’ll have to wait and see what the verdict is on the libel lawsuit and whether or not that will affect the defamation suit from Depp and the countersuit from Heard’s team. CinemaBlend will keep you updated, per usual.
