4 h, oct 5, 2018 y - HOLLYWOOD REPORTER Johnny Depp’s Legal Team Prepares for Court Hearing About Amber Heard Abuse Claims

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FROM THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER:

Johnny Depp’s Legal Team Prepares for Court Hearing About Amber Heard Abuse Claims

As Johnny Depp and Amber Heard gear up to release two major new films in the coming months, their legal teams are preparing to reignite a battle over alleged domestic abuse during their marriage.

BY KATIE KILKENNY

Two years ago the star of the latest installment in the Harry Potter universe, Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald (set for release on Nov. 16), and Aquaman (Dec. 14) actress settled their acrimonious divorce case amid Heard’s explosive allegations that her ex-husband had physically abused her. Heard withdrew her claims one day before a restraining order hearing was set to commence, and the actress donated her $7 million divorce settlement to two charities.

Now, however, Depp’s legal team makes clear that the battle isn’t over and that recent comments by the Heard party have exacerbated tensions.

“Two days ago, Amber Heard’s lawyers professed their ‘outrage’ to the media that Johnny Depp had finally spoken in self-defense,” Depp lawyer Adam Waldman of The Endeavor Group wrote in a statement to The Hollywood Reporter on Friday. “I responded with what happens next — we will submit overwhelming evidence to a U.K. court next month that Ms. Heard repeatedly violently attacked and severely injured Mr. Depp, and then faked abuse allegations against him. Ms. Heard became in the process an imposter in the #MeToo movement who abused the trust and experiences of real survivors for her own reputational gain.”

Depp’s team is previewing the evidence that it will present in the upcoming court hearing in the U.K. this fall tied to a defamation lawsuit against The Sun for an article that labeled the actor a “wife beater.”

“Our evidence will include photographs, sworn testimony and admissions, and eyewitness accounts,” Waldman wrote. “Ms. Heard, who has a prior arrest for domestic abuse, and her lawyers have responded to these remarkable disclosures with two days of profound silence, excepting social media posts of Ms. Heard wrapped in an American flag asserting: ‘we survivors…'”

Waldman concludes, “Ms. Heard’s lawyer publicly claimed Ms. Heard has unconsulted witnesses, but none have materialized. We would like to hear, and believe the public should hear, what, if anything, such ‘witnesses’ have to say, so that those statements may be held to account against our imminent court filings.”

THR has reached out to Heard’s legal team for any response.

The Depp camp’s statement arrives in the wake of Heard’s legal team’s comment on a recent, sprawling British GQ profile of Depp in which the actor denies physically abusing Heard. Heard’s team called it “outrageous” and accused Depp of violating a confidentiality agreement that they said was a term of the couple’s divorce settlement; their statement also criticized British GQ for not speaking with “witnesses” to Depp’s alleged abuse of Heard.

Depp’s team shot back that Depp was merely defending himself in the GQ profile, and that “Johnny Depp is the abuse victim” of domestic violence on Heard’s part.

The British GQ story was just the latest profile of Depp to emerge in the past few months as the actor rehabilitates his public image in the wake of the #MeToo movement and leading up to the November release of Grindelwald, where he will play the title role.

In her allegations against Depp prior to their divorce settlement in 2016, Heard alleged in one instance that Depp threw a cellphone at her face, pulled her hair, hit her and grabbed her face while intoxicated and high. A video leaked to TMZ a few months later purported to show the two in a fight, with Depp slamming cabinets and breaking objects. The Depp team said it was “heavily edited.”

SOURCE:
US VA Court Documents:
- Amber Heard Exhibit 141

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