A representative for Children’s Hospital Los Angeles is testifying about the unfulfilled donation pledged by Amber Heard amid a trial of dueling defamation lawsuits involving her ex-husband, Johnny Depp.
Candie Davidson-Goldbronn, a representative for Children’s Hospital LA, testified that they only received a small fraction of the original amount that Heard pledged, which was $3.5 million, half of the $7 million total she said she would receive as settlement money from her divorce from Depp.
In a pre-recorded deposition, Davidson-Goldronn testified that the hospital had only received $250,000 directly from Heard in total since 2016.
Under cross-examination, Davidson-Goldronn admitted Heard had not worked out a specific schedule for the donations to take place with the hospital, and added they would welcome any future installments Heard may make.
According to Law & Crime Network, Heard has also not fulfilled her $3.5 million commitment to the American Civil Liberties Union. The non-profit organization’s general counsel, Terence Dougherty, testified that Heard only personally paid $350,000 of the pledged amount. That amount, combined with other donations in her name, add-up to $1.3 million, including a $100,000 donation from Depp, $350,000 from a Fidelity Donor-Advised Fund, and $500,000 from Vanguard Donor Advised-Fund, with the latter allegedly coming from Heard’s post-Depp-divorce ex-boyfriend, Elon Musk.
The ACLU has also denied agreeing to write Heard’s op-ed at the center of the trial in exchange for her donation, in a sort of quid-pro-quo deal.
In previous testimony, Heard said the reason she did not fulfill her promised ACLU donation was due to receiving Depp’s divorce settlements in installments and that she was saddled with legal fees from Depp suing her. However, Depp’s lawyers have asserted the actor sent her the full $7 million settlement more than a year before the litigation.
The question of Heard’s donations to charity is significant because a judge in the U.K. previously cited her donations as evidence that Heard wasn’t a “gold digger” in a prior libel case that Depp ultimately lost. Depp had sued The Sun for libel for describing him as a “wife-beater,” but the judge ruled the article was not libelous because they cited credible evidence of abuse from Heard.
The court battle, unfolding in a courtroom in Fairfax, Virginia, centers on an op-ed Heard wrote for the Washington Post in 2018, in which she describes herself as a “public figure representing domestic abuse.” Though Depp isn’t named in the article, Heard made prior allegations of abuse against Depp in 2016, which he claims are false and are referenced in the piece.
Depp is suing Heard for $50 million for defamation for allegedly false domestic abuse accusations she made against him that he said hurt his career. Heard is counter-suing Depp, also for defamation, for $100 million.
While Heard maintains she was abused by Depp, Depp claims just the opposite: he was abused by her and not the other way around.