The Johnny Depp and Amber Heard court battle isn’t going away anytime soon, especially with a recent court victory by Depp, 58, that allows him access to her phone.
According to Page Six’s account, Depp’s lawyers want to prove that photos of Depp’s ex-wife showing black eyes were doctored. They’re arguing that the photos were of Heard, 35, were manipulated in Photoshop and that the black eyes were added after the fact.
“Ms. Heard’s counsel has repeatedly used these phony photographs at deposition,” said Depp’s lawyer, Benjamin Chew.
Depp is suing over an article in the Washington Post where she talks about domestic abuse but doesn’t mention Depp by name. He says the article constitutes libel against him.
Heard claimed she got two black eyes, a busted lip and a cracked nose after an attack in 2015. The LAPD responded to the beating but “they found no injury upon Ms. Heard and no disruption to the penthouses.”
Chew said she doctored the photos to get an “ex parte TRO [temporary restraining order] and a $7 million divorce settlement which Ms. Heard falsely testified in London she gave to the ACLU and, more scandalously, to the Children’s Hospital of Los Angeles; sick children with cancer.”
A photo expert hired by Depp found that the photos had been run through an app called Photo 3, and that they lacked metadata when they were handed over.
British publication The Sun called Depp a “wife beater” and Depp lost a libel case in November 2020 against it. He was not allowed to appeal.
Chew said that even The Sun‘s own photo expert found that the photos were “manipulated three years later.”
Depp’s experts will examine the photos and return their findings to the judge.
Depp and Heard have had a particularly messy and public divorce battle, and Depp is even claiming he’s suffered financial losses because of Heard.
After the decision was handed down, Heard’s lawyer Elaine Charlson Bredehoft said the evidence was already authenticated.
“Amber Heard remains willing and able to support the authenticity of her evidence, and her IT forensics expert has cooperated in this effort. In sharp contrast, Mr. Depp has been unable to produce even the audio tapes from which he leaked a partial out-of-context portion, much less any support for the authenticity of any of his evidence.”
It’ll be interesting to see where this true life drama goes next.
