If you didn’t know her name before, you likely know it now: Amber Heard. Now, she is more well-known for her high profile divorce from Johnny Depp than she is for her film roles. Recently in Depp’s defamation trial against her, his lawyers revealed a little secret. Amber Heard had only donated $1.3 million of the money that she pledged to the ACLU from her divorce settlement – and a large portion of that money wasn’t even hers. $500,000 of it, it seems, came from Elon Musk.
Amber Heard Has Not Paid What She Pledged To Charity From Divorce Settlement
When Amber Heard and Johnny Depp divorced in 2016, Amber Heard pledged to donate the $7 million she received from the divorce settlement to charity. Her chosen charities were the American Civil Liberties Union and Children’s Hospital Los Angeles. Of the two, the ACLU was to receive $3.5 million over the span of 10 years. (1)
Eight years later, however, the ACLU has received only $1.5 million. Terence Dougherty, the general counsel, and chief operating officer of the ACLU, spoke in a deposition about her unfulfilled promise. What they believe is that Heard paid about $350,000 herself. Depp paid another $100,000. Another $350,000 came from a fund at Fidelity, an investment fund.
Dougherty says the remaining $500,000, however, is from a fund set up by her billionaire ex-boyfriend Elon Musk.
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Organized By Musk
The $500,000 came from an account at investment firm Vanguard. The fund was set up by Musk after Heard and Depp’s divorce. In email chains between ACLU and Musk, they discussed the fund and how Amber Heard would pay the pledge over the span of 10 years. Eight years into her promise, however, and she is not anywhere near fulfilling that promise.
“Amber, I described your plan to donate $3.5 million to the ACLU over the next 10 years as you very much believe what you were doing,” Musk wrote in an email. (2)
Heard’s lawyers say that she fully intends to pay the full amount. They explained that she currently needs that money to pay her legal fees from the defamation lawsuit and trial. Depp’s lawyers asked Dougherty had done thus far to try and get her to pay.
“We reached out to Miss Heard starting in 2019 for the next installment of her giving and we learned she was having financial difficulties” he said.
Why Musk?
Shortly after Amber Heard and Johnny Depp divorced in 2016, Heard and Musk began dating. They met on the set of a film where Musk made a cameo appearance. They struck up a friendship immediately, however, claiming it was platonic. Naturally, once each of them was free from their respective marriages, it was clear that it was not. (3)
Musk and Heard dated for a year before schedules and distance forced them to part ways. They did rekindle their romance sometime later, however, once again called it off for good. The pair said that it was a highly amicable split and that they remained friends who still cared for each other.
Heard and Depp
As we know, Amber Heard and Johnny Depp’s split was, of course, much less friendly. They divorced in 2016, however, the drama didn’t stop there. Heard continued to speak out against Depp, citing violence in the home, among other things. She even produced an op-ed about it, however, it had to be reviewed and changed due to a non-disclosure agreement between herself and Depp.
After this began the true battle between Depp and Heard. Depp says that what Amber Heard has stated happened in their relationship did not happen. The years after when Heard first went public about what she stated happened were very difficult for the actor. He began the defamation case in 2019 following the 2018 op-ed. Depp claims that what she wrote ruined his career. Both have accused the other of physical violence and both have denied the claims. (4)
Regardless of how the defamation case turns out, sadly, both actors have lost in this situation. Depp’s career has already nose-dived since the whole ordeal. Disney dropped him from the 6th installment of the Pirates of The Caribbean franchise after Heard’s op-ed. Heard’s career has now also nose-dived as petitions for her to be dropped from Aquaman rage on. In the end, no one wins from a toxic relationship.
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Sources
- “REVEALED: Elon Musk paid nearly half of ex-girlfriend Amber Heard’s $1.3M donation to the ACLU despite actress promising to give $3.5M to the civil rights group after her divorce settlement with Johnny Depp.” Daily Mail. Karen Ruiz and Daniel Bates. April 29, 2022.
- “Amber Heard donated just $1.3 million of the $3.5 million she pledged to the ACLU from her Johnny Depp divorce settlement, and $500,000 of that likely came from Elon Musk, nonprofit says.” Insider. Ashley Collman and Jacob Shamsian. April 28, 2022.
- “Amber Heard and Elon Musk: A complete timeline of their relationship.” Page six. Jessica Bennett. April 28, 2022.
- “What to Know About Johnny Depp and Amber Heard’s Defamation Trial.” Time.