Amber Heard’s lawyers snub new documentary on Johnny Depp trial ahead of appeal-Rishma Dosani-Entertainment – Metro

Lawyers for Amber Heard declined to be featured in the new Discovery+ documentary concerning her trial with Johnny Depp.

The Pirates of the Caribbean actor launched a defamation lawsuit against his ex-wife, concerning an op-ed she wrote in the Washington Post in 2018.

In the piece, the Aquaman actress spoke of her experience with domestic abuse but did not mention her former partner by name – despite this, his team argued that it implied he was physically and sexually abusive towards her during the course of their relationship.

A two-part program exploring the explosive six-week trial has been released today on the platform, featuring never-before-seen footage from behind the scenes of the court case.

The first segment focused on Depp’s side and included interviews with his team, including Ben Chew and Camille Vasquez.

However, in a second part which explored Heard’s story, her lawyers – led by Ben Rottenborn and Elaine Bredehoft – opted out of sharing their thoughts.

Amber Heard’s story was explored in the second part of the documentary (Picture: AFP)

Amber Heard was represented by Elaine Bredehoft and Ben Rottenborn (Picture: AP)

A message appeared shortly after the opening credits, which read: ‘Amber Heard’s lawyers declined to take part in this film.

‘Her story will be told by experts who covered the trial.’

Archive footage from the courtroom was used instead, while noted lawyer Lisa Bloom – who was not representing either party – joined journalists and experts to discuss the case.

‘This was the last roll of the dice for Johnny. An opportunity to tell the world, “I didn’t do this”,’ Vasquez insisted, after it was mentioned that Depp had lost a previous libel lawsuit against The Sun in the UK for calling him a wife-beater when allegations of abuse against Heard were made public.

Her lawyers did not take part in the two-part special (Picture: AFP)

Ben Chew and Camille Vasquez appeared in the Discovery+ documentary (Picture: AP)

‘My job was to make it clear to the jury [that] what he was seeking was his reputation back, so his children did not have to walk through life with the stigma of their father being designated a domestic abuser, a sexual predator,’ Chew told the camera in part one.

‘It was everything for him.’

Depp sued Heard for $50million after over the Washington Post article, and denied all allegations of abuse – while Heard countersued for $100million, alleging that he created a ‘smear campaign’ against her and branded her a liar.

Following the lengthy proceedings, the jury found in favor of the Edward Scissorhands and awarded him $10million – but also gave Heard $2million for winning one count of her countersuit.

A jury found in favor of Johnny Depp at the end of the proceedings (Picture: Getty)

Both parties have since launched appeals against the verdict.

Hitting back at the decision for the case to initially go ahead, Bloom said: ‘She did not name him. She did not talk about any specific incidents of abuse.

‘What she talked about was how hard it has been as a representative of domestic abuse, and all of the backlash that she received.

‘I was frankly very surprised that he sued her just based on that article.

‘Johnny Depp has “f**k you money”, which means if he’s mad about something, he can hire lawyers who may cost him millions of dollars.

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‘Someone like Amber Heard really has to scramble to defend herself in a much weaker position.’

Slamming the overwhelmingly negative response that Heard was met with on social media as the court case played out, she added: ‘Ironically, it ultimately proves the truth of Amber Heard’s original article, which is essentially, “I spoke out about domestic violence and I’ve paid a price for it”.

‘That’s what this trial and the social media hate showed. That’s exactly what happened.’

Johnny vs Amber: The US Trial is available to stream on Discovery+ now.

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