The children stuck in middle of Johnny Depp and Amber Heard’s court battle
The feud between Johnny Depp’s daughter and his ex-wife Amber Heard has been exposed in the ugly court case between the two stars.
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The world knows just about every detail of Johnny Depp and Amber Heard’s private lives, as the good, the bad, and ugly is dragged out in courtroom testimonies.
And although most of the public scrutiny has undoubtedly impacted Depp and Heard, the messy divorce and court proceedings have impacted their loved ones, too.
Johnny Depp and Amber Heard’s sensational court showdown has come to a close, with a jury ruling in favour of the Pirates of the Caribbean star.Heard was ordered to pay Depp US$10 million (A$14 million) in defamation compensatory damages and US$5 million in punitive damages after the jury decided she “acted with actual malice.”
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It seems that anyone even remotely linked to the actors have felt compelled to make public statements – or have been dragged to testify in court, as Depp’s former supermodel girlfriend Kate Moss was – at various points since their 2016 divorce.
The overwhelming public attention has also landed on the couple’s children (that they did not have together) who have faced the overflow of scrutiny from the ugly defamation battle.
Who are Johnny Depp’s children?
Depp has two children from his 14 year relationship with French model, actress and singer Vanessa Paradis. The couple welcomed their first daughter, Lily-Rose in 1999, and son Jack two years later.
Lily-Rose has followed her parents’ footsteps, becoming a model and actress to much acclaim.
In 2014 she appeared alongside her famous father in Tusk, and reprised her role in the 2016 spin-off Yoga Hosers. Her character is set to get a third run in Moose Jaws.
The 22-year-old has been widely praised for her work in several French films, including her starring role as Isadora Duncan in The Dancer (2017), that earned her a Most Promising Actress Award at the 2017 Cesar Awards and Limineres Awards.
Lily-Rose also appeared as Natalie Portman’s younger sister in Planetarium (2017), and alongside Timothee Chalamet (whom she later dated) in The King (2019). She also starred in Crisis, Voyagers, Silent Night, and Wolf.
At just 15, she was hand-picked by Chanel creative director Karl Lagerfeld to be the face of the fashion house, as she has remained since.
Unlike his sister, 20-year-old Jack Depp has remained out of the public eye.
What we know of the youngest Depp has come from his father’s fond descriptions of a “talented draftsman” and musician.
“He draws really super well. He also plays music very well. He’s got a good feel for that,” Depp told The Inquirer.
How has the divorce impacted the kids?
In 2018, Depp told British GQ in 2018 that he hated the impact the “messy divorce” was already having on his children.
“I’m sure it wasn’t easy for my 14-year-old boy to go to school,” he said in the interview.
“With people going, ‘Hey, look at this magazine, man. What, your dad beats up chicks or something?’ Why did he have to go through that? Why did my daughter have to go through that?”
Lily-Rose was among the first people to defend her father against Amber Heard’s allegations of violence in 2016.
In a since-deleted series of social media posts, she shared a photo with her father and a caption emphatically defending her “loving” father.
“My dad is the sweetest most loving person I know, he’s been nothing but a wonderful father to my little brother and I, and everyone who knows him would say the same,” it read.
In court on April 20, Depp testified his daughter did not attend his 2015 wedding to Heard, revealing the actresses were “not on particularly great terms for several reasons”.
He said Heard was “always quite fond of MDMA … and mushrooms”, and that the wedding plan was “dinner, dancing and drugs.”
The 58-year-old actor also said his ex-wife drove a wedge between him and his children.
“[Heard] had to have me there at all times for her own needs,” he said.
He made a point at the start of the trial that he felt the need to “clear the record” for the sake of his children.
What about Amber Heard’s child?
In April 8, 2021, Amber Heard became a mother to a baby girl Oonagh Paige.
Oonagh was born with the help of a surrogate, after the actress was told she would never be able to carry her own baby.
The actress shared the news via Instagram in July, saying she decided to have a child four years prior and “wanted to do it on my own terms”.
“I now appreciate how radical it is for us as women to think about one of the most fundamental parts of our destinies in this way,” she wrote.
“I hope we arrive at a point in which it’s normalised to not want a ring in order to have a crib.”
She has not revealed the idendity of the child’s father or sperm donor, but there was wild speculation that it could be billionaire Elon Musk – who Heard was dated in 2016 and 2018.
On the penultimate day of the defamation trial, Amber Heard revealed that she had received thousands of death threats, with some trolls even threatening to murder her baby.
“People want to kill me, and they tell me so every day. People want to kill my baby in the microwave, and they tell me that,” Heard said to jurors last week.
“I receive hundreds of death threats regularly, if not daily. Thousands since this trial started.”
Originally published as The children stuck in middle of Johnny Depp and Amber Heard’s court battle
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