#Amber Heard & #JohnnyDepp's Divorce Allegations Are Spiraling Out of Control: Untangling Two Very Different Stories

After Amber Heard went public with allegations that Johnny Depp had abused her over the course of their relationship, there was at least the possibility that the story would quiet down between then and their looming June 17 court date.

Of course that didn't happen.

While a legitimate discussion about domestic abuse, victim-shaming and the cult of celebrity was had in some arenas, social media users promptly retreated to their various corners and chose sides from which to cast their stones. That was certainly expected.

Also expected—and what has indeed come to pass—is that the various sides of the now sordid-no-matter-what story are becoming increasingly unrecognizable from each other.

Heard had a visible bruise on her right cheek when she appeared in court on May 27 to secure a temporary restraining order against Depp, her filing having included allegations that he smacked her in the face with her cell phone during a fight at their downtown L.A. penthouse six days beforehand.
Police did respond to a call about a domestic incident but left after the reported victim chose not to file a report.

Meanwhile, a source told E! News that Heard was seen both two days and five days after the alleged phone incident with no visible injury to her face. A photo of Heard with her hair covering her right eye and most of her cheek had been posted by Amanda de Cadenet the weekend of the purported fight, but it had been taken down by the time Heard went to court.

After she secured the TRO, paparazzi pics taken of Heard smiling over Memorial Day weekend made the rounds, presented not so subtly that Heard at least looked fine. Also that weekend, Depp's latest movie, the Alice in Wonderland sequel Through the Looking Glass, was busy tanking at the box office while he was in Europe for a string of shows with his band Hollywood Vampires. He too was spotted looking at ease and perfectly "fine" while chatting with a woman at a bar in Stockholm until 2 a.m. after a performance.

"These last few days have been hard. She isn't the bad guy here," a source told us with regard to the photos of Heard. "It is a very emotional time. And those photos where she was seen laughing…she's allowed to laugh and smile, it doesn't mean she's happy or alright, it means there was a moment when she was laughing with her friend."

Noting the overwhelming knee-jerk demonizing of Heard on social media, her attorneys praised her as "a hero" who had taken the "high road" while Depp's team "immediately went to the press and began viciously attacking Amber's character."

"In domestic violence cases, it is not unusual for the perpetrator's playbook to include miscasting the victim as the villain," lawyers Samantha F. Spector and Joseph P. Koenig stated.

In her response to Heard's TRO petition, Depp's divorce attorney, Laura Wasser, had accused the actress of cooking up the abuse story to influence a judge's decision on spousal support. (Heard's request for $50,000 a month, to cover expenses that would match her marital lifestyle, has been denied pending the upcoming hearing.)


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