Amber Heard walked away from 'tens of millions of dollars', court docs say

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By Carina Murphy

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Unsealed documents from Johnny Depp's blockbuster libel trial have revealed that Amber Heard "walked away from millions" when she first divorced the actor.

Earlier this summer, the celebrity exes became the focus of a media storm around their multi-million dollar defamation trial.

After weeks of battling it out in Fairfax County Circuit Court, Virginia, jurors sided with Depp and ruled that Heard had defamed him when she claimed to be a survivor of domestic abuse in a 2018 Washington Post op-ed.

The verdict awarded Depp $10 million in compensatory damages and a further $5 million in punitive damages - a sum which Heard has since claimed she can not afford to pay her ex-husband.

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Credit: REUTERS / Alamy.

However, it has now been revealed that Heard might have been able to afford the damages if she had not walked away from "tens of millions of dollars" during her divorce from Depp in 2016.

Per The Daily Beast, Heard ignored her lawyers' advice that she was entitled to half of her then-husband's income from the fifth Pirates of the Caribbean movie, which he shot during their marriage.

Depp reportedly earned $33 million for starring in the Disney film. However, documents show that Heard refused to claim half of her then husband's salary from the role - which was deemed a "community property asset" - and was told by her lawyers she was being "amazingly true to your word that this is not about the money".

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Credit: Dpa Picture Alliance / Alamy.

The divorce agreement Depp and Heard eventually reached in August 2016 was a hot topic during their Virginia defamation trial. Heard infamously claimed in the wake of their divorce that she would donate $7 million of her settlement to charity. During the trial, Depp's lawyers argued that the money was never actually donated and that Heard's public pledge to give it away was an example of her manipulative character.

News that Heard rejected money during her divorce from Depp is just one of the shocking new details to emerge from the 6,000-plus pages of documents from their libel trial that were unsealed over the weekend.

Per reports, the documents also reveal that Depp's legal team tried to submit nude photos of Heard as evidence and to use the death of her friend 'Logan' against her.

Featured Image Credit: Abaca Press / Alamy.