When Johnny Depp and Amber Heard reached a divorce settlement in 2016, Heard announced that she'd donate her entire $7 million payout to charity. She said the money would be split between two organizations: the American Civil Liberties Union and Children's Hospital Los Angeles.
By October 2018, Heard had received the full settlement amount, she testified Monday in Depp's defamation trial against her. She also said in a media interview at around the same time that she had already donated the funds. But an ACLU executive testified earlier in the trial that the organization never received the full $3.5 million it was promised and that about half the donations it received in Heard's name came from Elon Musk, the billionaire CEO of Tesla who dated Heard after her breakup with Depp.
Heard said on the stand Monday that she still planned to donate all of the money she promised but that Depp's lawsuit — which demands up to $50 million in damages — got in the way.
"I still fully intend on honoring all of my pledges," Heard said. "I would love him to stop suing me so I can."
In April, Terence Dougherty, the general counsel and chief operating officer of the ACLU, testified in the ongoing trial that $1.3 million had been donated in Heard's name overall, with $350,000 directly from her and $100,000 from Depp and $500,000 from Musk in her name. Dougherty showed the jury a pledge form — unsigned by Heard — laying out how Heard could pay the full $3.5 million over 10 years.
Depp's lawsuit, filed in 2019, accuses Heard of ruining his reputation and career by saying in a 2018 Washington Post op-ed article that she had been the victim of domestic violence. Heard has denied Depp's defamation allegations and filed a $100 million counterclaim, saying he physically assaulted her before and during their marriage.
On the witness stand Monday in the Fairfax County, Virginia, courthouse, Heard said she "promised the entirety of it to charity because I was never interested in Johnny's money." She said she selected the ACLU as an organization for funds because she believed in its mission and selected the children's hospital because she had volunteered there for more than a decade and believed it could use the funds.
When asked by her lawyer in direct examination whether the donations had a deadline, Heard said: "There are none. They understand."
She also said she planned to give the full $7 million on top of what Musk paid. One of Depp's business managers testified earlier in the trial that the $100,000 Depp paid in Heard's name came from the divorce-settlement funds.
Heard also appeared to say she'd paid $6 million to mount a legal defense before one of Depp's attorneys objected and cut her off from finishing her answer.
