Amber Heard Tell-All Book Could Net Actress Over $15 Million
There seems to be a bidding war to publish an Amber Heard tell-all book with an incredibly huge payday for the actor.
When the jury rendered a verdict largely in actor Johnny Depp’s favor at the end of the very contentious defamation against his estranged former spouse, it raised one very large question: how is Amber Heard going to pay for this? The jury awarded millions in damages to the former (and perhaps future) Pirates of the Caribbean star, to be paid by Amber Heard. By all estimates and reports, the Aquaman star did not have the funds to pay the court’s orders, but she just might have found a lifeline. It seems there is a bidding war afoot and a potential Amber Heard tell-all book could earn her well over $15 million.
According to Radar, an Amber Heard book that could potentially spill yet more dirt on the allegedly abusive relationship between the formerly married pair is being hotly pursued by multiple publishers. The bidding is rumored to be somewhere in the region of $15 million, which would allow Amber Heard to pay off the ordered damages through a single book, and have some left over. According to OK!, Amber Heard also considers her career in Hollywood to essentially have come to an end and is very much on board to write what is described as a “revenge book.” OK! Also goes on to further claim that Amber Heard feels she has “nothing to lose” by writing a tell-all book.
However, that is not exactly accurate. While the legal concept of “double jeopardy” (ensured in the United States by a clause in the Constitution’s Fifth Amendment) prohibits an individual from being tried on the same charge after an acquittal or conviction, it does not prohibit similar, non-identical charges from being brought. This is all to say that if Amber Heard writes a book that Johnny Depp and his legal team find to be defamatory towards him (as the concept of a “revenge” book would seem), they are perfectly free to file a lawsuit against her once more. Given that Amber Heard has already very publicly been on the (mostly) losing end of a defamation case with Johnny Depp, a book that invites more of the same is a bit of a risky proposition.
The motivation for Amber Heard to write a tell-all book about her life with Johnny Depp comes to about $8.35 million. The jury in the defamation case initially ordered Heard to pay Depp $10 million in compensatory damages and $5 million in punitive damages. Judge Penney S. Azcarate reduced the punitive damages to $350,000 (the maximum that can be ordered under Virginia state law, where the trial was held). Further, the jury found for Amber Heard on one count, ordering Johnny Depp to pay her $2 million.
The math still boils down to millions owed to Johnny Depp, though Amber Heard’s legal team appears to be publicly contesting the verdict in every manner possible (including claiming one juror was not who they said they were and that the verdict was invalid because Amber Heard felt her claims were true) except filing motions in the legal system as ordered by Judge Azcarate.
