Amber Heard denied that she is blackmailing estranged husband Johnny Depp or lying in her claims about domestic abuse, in a letter to TheWrap from her lawyer on Monday.
The “allegations against Ms. Heard are absolutely and unequivocally false,” said Peter Sample, a lawyer for Heard. The letter said that the claim of blackmail by Depp’s friend Doug Stanhope “has no basis in reality and is nothing but the typical celebrity muckraking for profit.”
Sample demanded a retraction of the article, calling the claim defamatory and “outrageous.” TheWrap will respond to the letter through its legal counsel.
Stanhope, a friend of Depp, published a guest column in TheWrap this weekend in which he said Depp was being falsely accused of physical abuse and instead was being manipulated by Heard, who was “threatening to lie about him publicly in any and every possible duplicitous way if he didn’t agree to her terms. Blackmail is what I would imagine other people might put it, including the manner in which he is now being vilified.”
This comment sparked the denial by Heard’s lawyer, who wrote: “It is highly offensive and disturbing that you would choose to publish it in the first place.” TheWrap reached out to Heard’s publicists for comment on Sunday when Stanhope’s guest column was published, but received no response.
The actress filed for divorce last week claiming irreconcilable differences. She was granted a temporary restraining order against Depp on Friday and claims the actor threw an iPhone at her face and pulled her hair. A court hearing for the case will be held next month.
The accusations and counter-accusations — a lawyer for Depp has denied that he was physically abusive to Heard — have caught fire on social media and set off raging debates among fans of both actors.