High profile British feminists have rallied behind Amber Heard amid her ex-husband Johnny Depp‘s bombshell libel trial.
Cherie Blair, the barrister and wife of former Prime Minister Tony Blair, is understood to have spoken with the actress’ legal team last week, as Depp’s High Court trial entered its second week.
The pair met last year when they both spoke at the United Nations general assembly in New York to campaign against women being unjustly imprisoned, the Sunday Times reported.
Labour MP and Shadow Minister for Domestic Violence and Safeguarding Jess Phillips has also spoken to Heard.
‘When I spoke to [Heard] about violence against women policies and the UN, I didn’t know how she is remaining so calm and strong,’ she said. ‘She seemed incredibly together.’
High profile British feminists have rallied behind Amber Heard (pictured in London) amid her ex-husband Johnny Depp’s bombshell libel trial
Cherie Blair (left) is understood to have spoken with the actress’ legal team last week, as Depp’s High Court trial entered its second week. Pictured right: Jess Phillips
Ms Phillips added she is worried the trial has focused so much on Heard, who is ‘not even party to the proceedings’. She claimed some of the analysis of Heard’s character was ‘dangerous’ and ‘irrelevant to the facts of the case’.
Depp is suing News Group Newspapers, the parent company of the Sun, for libel over a 2018 article which labelled him a ‘wife-beater.’
‘It is very problematic because this is not a trial [Heard] is party to, she is a witness,’ Ms Phillips added.
‘People think this is her taking him to trial. As a bystander, I feel like Heard is on trial, and she’s not even party to the proceedings.’
Heard, who is due to give evidence at the High Court tomorrow, has been supported through the nine-day trial by her partner Bianca Butti, her sister Whitney and her barrister Jennifer Robinson.
Robinson works at Doughty Street Chambers alongside Amal Clooney.
Depp is suing News Group Newspapers, the parent company of the Sun, for libel over a 2018 article which labelled him a ‘wife-beater’
Amanda de Cadenet (pictured with Heard) said she felt she had been ‘misled by Miss Heard in relation to Miss Heard’s account of her relationship with Mr Depp and the violence between them’
But despite appearing to gain the support of several British feminists, Heard has lost the backing of close friend and longtime women’s right activist Amanda de Cadenet.
Cadenet, who was expected to give evidence on behalf of publisher News Group Newspapers, said she felt she had been ‘misled by Miss Heard in relation to Miss Heard’s account of her relationship with Mr Depp and the violence between them’.
The statement was read out in the High Court on Friday.
On Thursday, the court heard that British TV host Miss de Cadenet had been ‘abandoned’ as a potential witness.
David Sherborne, for Depp, said: ‘Miss de Cadenet was originally going to be a witness for the defendant [the newspaper]. She was listed on the friends of Miss Heard coming to give evidence.
‘Then Miss de Cadenet felt she had been misled by Miss Heard in relation to Miss Heard’s relationship with Mr Depp and violence between them.’
Pirates of the Caribbean actor Depp, 57, has taken action against News Group Newspapers over a headline published by the Sun labelling him a ‘wife-beater’.
Depp, 57, has rejected allegations he was physically abusive towards Heard as ‘sick and completely untrue’.
Depp, 57, and Heard, 34, met on the set of the 2011 comedy ‘The Rum Diary’ and married in Los Angeles in February 2015. They are pictured at the film’s premiere in London in November 2011
Depp, 57, has rejected allegations he was physically abusive towards Heard as ‘sick and completely untrue’
On the ninth day of the court case on Friday, it was alleged Heard had secretly recorded her interior designer raging against Depp’s lawyer for pressuring her to make a critical statement about the actress.
Laura Divenere, who furnished the couple’s Los Angeles penthouse, said in her witness statement she never saw Heard with any injuries following a fight with Depp in May 2016.
She even claimed in her written statement that Heard, 34, never spoke about being the victim of domestic abuse during her time with Depp who she described as ‘delightful’ and never aggressive.
The alleged row has become a focal point of Depp’s High Court showdown against The Sun newspaper.
But evidence of a conversation between her and Heard in which Divenere vented against Depp’s US attorney Adam Waldman for leaning on her to brand Heard physically abusive in her High Court statement was then shared.
In the conversation, Ms Divenere called Waldman the ‘biggest a**hole under the sun’ after he asked her to abandon Heard’s version of the contentious 2016 fight.
The trial continues.