Johnny Depp's Lawyers Say Amber Heard Faked Abuse to Advance Career

Johnny Depp's latest lawsuit against his ex-wife Amber Heard kicked off with a blunt accusation on Tuesday. According to a report by Variety, Depp's lawyers accused Heard of completely fabricating her accusations of domestic violence in order to advance her own career. This means the defamation case will now devolve into a relitigation of the abuse allegations themselves.

Depp is suing Heard for defamation, claiming that her 2018 op-ed in The Washington Post damaged his reputation. By nature, this means that Depp and his lawyers are arguing that Heard's op-ed and the claims within it are false. As the trial got underway on Tuesday, Depp's lawyers suggested that Heard had good reason to falsify these claims – to portray herself as a victim and earn some sympathetic publicity at Depp's expense. Heard never filed a criminal complaint against Depp, although she did have a restraining order against him for most of their divorce proceedings.

Heard's attorney, Ben Rottenborn, argued that his client's abuse allegations were true and that the way they were expressed in the 2018 op-ed was protected by the First Amendment. Furthermore, he speculated that Depp was the one fudging the truth in order to bolster his own publicity, not Heard. He called Depp "an obsessed ex-husband hellbent on revenge," adding: "For years, all Mr. Depp has wanted to do is humiliate Amber, to haunt her, to wreck her career."

This lawsuit is in Virginia, and it is expected to take about six weeks. Depp is represented by attorneys Ben Chew and Camille Vasquez. The lawyers must all try to sway the opinions of 11 jurors who are being asked to consider a huge amount of documentary evidence. However, rather than determining whether Depp or Heard is guilty of abuse, they must determine whether Heard's behavior meets the legal definition of defamation.

Part of Depp's case is the proximity of Heard's op-ed to the national interest in violent scandals in the entertainment industry. During their opening statement, Vasquez said: "[Heard] presented herself as the face of the #MeToo movement – the virtuous representative of innocent women across the country and the world who have truly suffered abuse. The evidence will show that was a lie."

The public interest is certainly there for this case, where the violent details of Heard's accusations will be revisited along with the particulars of Depp's alleged drug and alcohol binges. Check back for more updates on this case over the next six weeks.