I feel like the Sherlock Holmes of gossip sometimes. There was something so damn fishy about TMZ’s story yesterday, wherein Johnny Depp passive-aggressively decided to “donate” Amber Heard’s $7 million divorce settlement to charity on her behalf. As I said in the post, I just didn’t see any way in which Depp’s actions were legal because any half-assed lawyer would say, “No, you petty dumbass, you were supposed to write the check to Amber and SHE could donate the money how she wanted. That was the deal.” Instead, Depp made it all about how much he passive-aggressively “admired” Amber’s choice, so he was just going to cut out the legally agreed upon settlement terms middleman. The middleman is Amber in this situation. And now Amber is calling bulls—t on Depp.

Amber Heard has just fired back at Johnny Depp, saying if he really cares about donating Amber’s divorce settlement he’ll ante up $14 million, not $7 mil … and in fact she’s insisting on that. Amber’s team tells TMZ, Johnny is not being up-front about his latest move … giving Children’s Hospital of L.A. and the ACLU the $7 million earmarked for Amber.

Amber said last week she would donate the settlement money to the 2 charities, but her people tell us if Johnny sends the money directly to the 2 organizations he’s not really paying $7 mil, because he gets a charitable tax deduction. And we’re told Amber’s position is that the money is not Johnny’s to give away. This is Amber’s statement:

“Amber Heard appreciates Johnny Depp’s novel interest in supporting two of her favorite charities, the ACLU for domestic violence and the Children’s Hospital of Los Angeles. This is great and unexpected news,” said the statement from Heard’s team. “However, if Johnny wishes to change the settlement agreement, we must insist that he honor the full amount by donating $14M to charity, which, after accounting for his tax deduction, is equal to his $7M payment obligation to Amber. We would also insist that the full amount be paid immediately and not drawn out over many years. Anything less would be a transparent attempt by Johnny’s counsel, Laura Wasser and Patti Glaser, to reduce their client’s true payment by half under the guise of newfound concern for charities that he has never previously supported.”

[From TMZ and Variety]

I wish Amber’s people/lawyers hadn’t argued that side of the disagreement. I tend to think the stronger argument would have been what I said yesterday, which is: “That’s money Johnny Depp legally owes to Amber, and Amber gets to decide where the money goes, end of story.” When there’s a legal settlement in a contentious divorce, don’t play shenanigans with the money. Besides that, Depp is obviously trying to provoke her because he’s still so pissed off that she left him, divorced him and exposed him. Classic abuser: he’s baiting her as “punishment.” In any case, Depp just needs to write the g—damn check to Amber and let her do whatever she wants with it. Legally, that $7 million is not his money to give away.

Photos courtesy of WENN, Fame/Flynet.