Amber Heard Sues Comedian for Defamation Over Claim She's Blackmailing Johnny Depp

Doug Stanhope wrote a piece for 'The Wrap' entitled "Johnny Depp Is Being Blackmailed by Amber Heard – Here’s How I Know."
Amber Heard, Johnny Depp, Doug Stanhope  Heard: Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images. Depp: Jon Kopaloff/FilmMagic. Stanhope: Michael Schwartz/WireImage.

When comedian Doug Stanhope accused Amber Heard of blackmailing Johnny Depp with false abuse claims to get her way in their divorce, he was scheming to divert attention away from true facts that caused the marriage to fail, according to a lawsuit filed Friday in Arizona Superior Court.

After Heard appeared in court with a bruised face and a request for a temporary restraining order against Depp (which was granted), the comedian penned a guest column for The Wrap, claiming she was fabricating domestic-abuse claims in order to force the actor to agree with her divorce terms.

Heard responded to the article through an attorney, calling the claims defamatory and demanding a retraction. The story is still posted, but now contains a parenthetical that Heard says the claims are "unequivocally false" and a link to the story containing the full response.

She's now suing Stanhope, and others who have not yet been named, for defamation and intentional infliction of emotional distress.

"Stanhope is a close friend of Johnny Depp and, as part of a coordinated effort, wrote a highly defamatory article about Ms. Heard, filled with completely false, highly defamatory and very hurtful statements," said Heard's attorney, Charles Harder. "Ms. Heard seeks the maximum possible jury award and will donate 100 percent of the proceeds from the lawsuit to Chrysalis, a domestic-violence shelter in Arizona, in an effort to counter the setback made to women by the defendants’ defamatory article and related wrongful acts."

The lawsuit also details a “campaign of violence” that Depp has inflicted upon Heard over the years.

“Depp has hit and kicked Heard on numerous occasions, has thrown objects at her, at one point nearly suffocated her to the point where she feared for her life,” states the complaint. “Heard repeatedly returned to Depp, despite his verbal and physical mistreatment of her, hoping optimistically that the man she married would change his behavior. Each time Heard returned, however, within months, the cycle of substance abuse and violence repeated.”

Heard claimed she reached her breaking point after Depp attacked her in a violent, delusional state following the death of his mother.

See her full complaint below.

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