- Amber Heard chose not to ask for more money in her divorce from Johnny Depp.
- She was entitled to half of Depp's income from "Pirates of the Caribbean," newly unsealed court documents show.
Amber Heard ignored her lawyers and chose not to ask for more money in her divorce from Johnny Depp, newly unsealed court documents from their defamation trial show.
More than 6,000 pages of court documents published over the weekend — the authenticity of which Insider confirmed with the Fairfax County Circuit Court — showed claims that were submitted by Heard and Depp's lawyers in preparation for the defamation trial.
Among the revelations was that Heard was entitled to half of Depp's income from the fifth "Pirates of the Caribbean" movie because he was working on it during their marriage, and the money was therefore considered a "community property asset" in the state of California.
While it was unclear when the email was written in 2016 how much the film would make when it was released a year later, Heard's lawyers noted that Depp made more than $21 million for his first "Pirates of the Caribbean" film and more than $33 million for the fourth film in the franchise.
Heard's lawyers made it very clear she was turning down a lot of money by deciding not to invoke her right to half the income from Depp's "Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales" work. The email doesn't explain why Heard didn't want the money.
"Simply put ... you are potentially leaving a lot of money (to wit, tens of millions of dollars payable to you) on the table by waiving your interest in Johnny's back-end deals for projects he worked on during marriage," Heard's attorney, Samantha Spector, wrote in the email.
Spector went on to commend Heard for her apparent lack of interest in Depp's money.
"Candidly, you are being amazingly true to your word, that this is not about the money," Spector wrote. "With tremendous respect, you are walking away from a lot of money."
That evidence was excluded from Depp and Heard's defamation trial as Penney Azcarate, the presiding judge, had rejected the inclusion of any evidence related to their divorce proceedings, The Daily Beast reported.
Representatives for Depp and Heard did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment.
Depp and Heard met on the set of the 2011 film "The Rum Diary." The couple married in 2015 and divorced in 2016 after a year of marriage. The fifth installment of "Pirates of the Caribbean, named "Dead Men Tell No Tales," came out in 2017.
Earlier this year, Depp took Heard to court over a December 2018 Washington Post op-ed in which she implied, without naming him, that she was a survivor of sexual and domestic violence. Heard then countersued.
Jurors found both Depp and Heard liable for defaming each other but awarded Depp more in damages.
Depp received $15 million, including $10 million in compensatory damages and $5 million in punitive damages. Heard won one of her three countersuits claims and was rewarded $2 million in compensatory damages.