Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin - Following the Johnny Depp vs Amber Heard Money Trial

Episode Date: May 9, 2022

Nicole follows the money trail behind Johnny Depp and Amber Heard's trial to find out what's really at stake, and whether there's a lesson in all this. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Well, it doesn't. Charge for wasting our time. I will take a check. Like an old school check. You recognize her from anchoring on CNN, CNBC, and Bloomberg. The only financial expert you don't need a dictionary to understand. Nicole Lappin. News media outlets and social media outlets alike cannot get enough of the Johnny Depp

and Amber Heard trial. TikTok especially is obsessed with this story. I don't know about you guys, but I cannot scroll on TikTok without coming across a video of Johnny Depp laughing at Amber Heard's lawyers. And that says a lot because I'm not often on TikTok. Because we can't seem to escape this story, we've probably all absorbed some information about the trial. We know that Johnny Depp and Amber Heard are in court. We know that they both made claims that they were abused by the other. But what exactly is at stake here? What is Johnny Depp asking for? And what lessons

can we take from this trial? To answer these questions, we need to go back to the beginning. Johnny Depp and Amber Heard were married for about two years, from 2013 to 2015. When the couple filed for divorce, Amber alleged that Johnny was physically and verbally abusive during the marriage. Days before they went to court to negotiate the divorce settlement, Amber claimed that Johnny threw an iPhone at her head during an argument, and she filed a police report and a restraining order. She showed up to court with bruises on her face, and People magazine published those photos. After that, Amber's allegations against Johnny became a big topic in Hollywood press.

From 2015 to now, Johnny Depp has vehemently denied any act of violence against Amber Heard. Johnny says he was in complete shock when he heard those allegations, and he testified in court, and I quote, never did I myself reach a point of striking misheard in any way nor have I ever struck any woman in my life, end quote. In August 2016, Amber and Johnny reached a divorce settlement. They said in a joint statement, and I'm pulling another quote here, our relationship was intensely passionate and at times volatile, but always bound by love. Neither party has made false accusations for financial gains. There was never an intent of physical or emotional harm. Amber wishes the best for Johnny in the future,

end quote. It was pretty widely reported that Amber donated the money from the settlement to the division of the ACLU that combats violence against women and the Children's Hospital of Los Angeles. However, the ACLU made an official statement saying that did not happen. The ACLU was expecting $3.5 million from Amber, but to date, they've only received about half of that. In 2016, Amber donated $350,000 to the ACLU. Then Johnny Depp donated $100,000 on her behalf. Then another $500,000 and $350,000 were donated on Amber's behalf. Fun fact, people think that $500,000 was donated by Elon Musk, who is an ex-boyfriend of Amber's. That's a grand total of $1.3 million, which, don't get me wrong,

is still a ton of money, but it's not the $3.5 million that was committed. An official from the ACLU said they reached out to Amber in 2019 to ask about the next installment of her giving, and she reported that she was having financial difficulties. Next came a cornerstone moment in the Amber-Johnny story. It's the moment that led to this whole messy defamation trial. In 2018, Amber wrote an op-ed for The Washington Post titled, I Spoke Up Against Sexual Violence and Faced Our Culture's Wrath. That has to change. In the article, she talked about how coming forward

about her experience with abuse hurt her career, and she called herself a public face of domestic abuse. Now, importantly, she never mentioned Johnny's name in the op-ed, but Johnny's lawyers argue she was clearly referring to him as the abuser. Tabloids jumped on the op-ed and ran with the allegations. Notably, the newspaper The Sun called Johnny Depp a, quote, wife-beater. It's because of this op-ed that Johnny brought the $50 million defamation suit against Amber. Now, let's pause here for a moment. $50 million is a whole lot of money. Why does Johnny Depp think he deserves $50 million for one op-ed that doesn't even mention him by name? Let's start by unpacking the question, WTF is defamation? The Legal Information Institute defines it as a statement that injures a third party's reputation.

It's interesting to think that all of these cast of characters in the courtroom, lawyers, judges, a jury, stenographers, press, are all working to answer the question of whether Amber Heard damaged Johnny Depp's reputation. It seems like that's more of a case for the court of public opinion than the court of law. But here's the thing. In defamation suits, the question really is whether or not damage to the complainant's reputation cost them money. And that's what Johnny is arguing. According to Johnny, this op-ed ruined his reputation and therefore his career. Can you imagine a big media company like Disney, a company that positions itself as a family-friendly company casting an actor who has been branded as a wife-beater, that would be a disaster, right? Well, that's apparently exactly what happened. Pirates of the Caribbean, a franchise that has historically starred Johnny Depp as Captain Jack

Sparrow, is a Disney production. Johnny's talent manager testified that Johnny had a verbal agreement with Disney to do a new Pirates of the Caribbean film for $22.5 million. But in early 2019, after the op-ed came out, Disney told Johnny that they were going to go in a different direction for the film. Johnny Depp was also asked by Warner Brothers to resign from the Harry Potter spinoff Fantastic Beasts franchise. And that, my friends, conservatively puts us at $50 million in lost wages. But Amber Heard wasn't the first person Johnny took to court. In 2018, Johnny Depp brought a defamation suit against The Sun newspaper for that story, calling him a wife beater. Johnny lost that case, and notably, a judge found that there was, and I'm quoting again here,

overwhelming evidence that Johnny had assaulted Amber repeatedly during their marriage. To complicate things even further, the jury in the current trial is also considering a countersuit from Amber, who says that Johnny defamed her when his lawyer made a statement that her domestic abuse

claims were an orchestrated hoax. So what is the truth? Again, it feels significant to me that the judge in the UK said that there was overwhelming evidence of Johnny assaulting Amber, but Johnny has also alleged that Amber was abusive. Johnny has cited one instance when Amber allegedly threw a vodka bottle during a fight and a shard of glass severed one of his fingers. The couple's marriage counselor, Laurel Anderson, said she saw mutual abuse in their relationship. But again, they have both denied each other's claims. So this question of the truth of the matter, I can't answer. In fact, the truth of the matter, I can't answer. In fact, no one can. No one knows what happened between these two people. To me, it sounds like there is evidence that they were both abusive toward

each other. But from what I can tell, it's a lot of he said, she said, and it's nearly impossible to find resolution and truth in hearsay. For today's tip, you can take straight to the bank. The lesson I take away from this trial is to keep meticulous records and documentation in situations that don't feel right. If that situation turns into a court case, be it for a divorce, wrongful termination, a squabble with your landlord, you need records. If Amber and Johnny had legitimate records of their claims of abuse, maybe we'd actually know the truth of their story. Learn from their mistakes. I think it's safe to

say that going to court is never going to be fun, but it can be less shitty if you have strong documentation to help your case. Money Rehab is a production of iHeartRadio. I'm your host, Nicole Lappin. Our producers are Morgan Lavoie and Mike Coscarelli. Executive producers are Nikki Etor and Will Pearson. Our mascots are Penny and Mimsy. Huge thanks to OG Money Rehab team, Michelle Lanz for her development work,

Catherine Law for her production and writing magic, and Brandon Dickert for his editing, engineering, and sound design. And as always, thanks to you for finally investing in yourself so that you can get it together and get it all.