David X Prutting/BFAnyc/Sipa USATwo weeks ago today, Amber Heard was granted a temporary domestic violence restraining order against her estranged husband Johnny Depp. Now, a week ahead of the case's full hearing, the actress is trying to postpone giving an official deposition, according to court documents obtained by E! News.
As reported by TMZ, the actress and her best friend Raquel Pennington cannot be available for a deposition before the scheduled evidentiary hearing on June 17 because she is in New Jersey for a friend's engagement party and then must fly to London for a fitting for Justice League, her lawyer Samantha Spector reportedly told a judge Friday.
According to Spector, the actress will not return home until Thursday night, right before the hearing on Friday. According to court documents obtained by the outlet, Depp's attorney Laura Wasser wanted to hold the deposition today before Spector said Heard was not available.
Spector is reportedly also requesting that the hearing be pushed back because she says she needs more time to prepare Heard to present her case. The deposition came at the request of Wasser, who asked the judge not to reschedule the hearing in order to avoid potential further public damage to Depp's career.
The documents reportedly also describe the two attorneys discussing a possible settlement for the estranged couple. According to the files, Heard is requesting $50,000 a month in spousal support, a request that was previously denied by a judge.
If Heard is granted a permanent restraining order against Depp in this next hearing, it may influence whether or not she is granted spousal support in their divorce. However, because of their short marriage, Heard can't expect a large length of payout either way.
"The spousal support is going to be rather slim because they were only married for 15 months, so that means usually they give one and a half to two times the amount of the time they were married," attorney Troy Slaten explained to E! News. "She would be looking at a maximum of 30 months for spousal support."
As for their non-existent prenuptial agreement, Slaten explains Heard could receive half of Depp's assets during the length of their 15-month marriage up until the day she filed for divorce.
"The law says that anything you had before the marriage is yours and everything acquired after the marriage is 50/50. So, any royalties, any future royalties for movies that they made while they were married would be 50/50, but anything after the date the divorce is filed—not the date that it is final but the date she filed for divorce—that moment after is separate property," he explained.
Meanwhile, as Wasser prepares to defend Depp in court, she also reportedly asked for any of Heard's phone records that reference domestic violence from 2015 onward. Alleged text messages from 2014 between Heard and Depp's purported assistant Stephen Deuters surfaced on ETOnline claiming moments of abuse by Depp, though the outlet was not able to independently authenticate the texts and Deuters later claimed the texts had been doctored.
E! News has reached out to both attorneys for comment.