Cast your mind back, way back, to May 2015, when Johnny Depp was in deep trouble with the Australian Government for smuggling his dogs into the country.
Depp and his then-wife, Amber Heard failed to declare their pups, Pistol and Boo, when arriving in Australia to film Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales.
The dogs were taken to a Gold Coast groomer and she uploaded a photo of them, unwittingly setting off authorities who were quick to raise questions about the canine’s unlawful presence in the country.
Barnaby Joyce led the charge against the celebrities, giving Depp “50 hours” to take the dogs back to California. Otherwise, “we’re going to have to euthanise them.”
Depp called the now-deputy PM Joyce “inbred” in retaliation to his threat of killing the pups.
Amber Heard ended up pleading guilty to one count of falsifying border protection documents as she didn’t declare the dogs.
It resulted in the most awkward ‘apology video’ of all time, Depp and Heard apologising profusely for their mistake in breaching Australian quarantine laws
Both Depp and his ex-wife maintained that the whole thing was just one big misunderstanding and they thought Pistol and Boo’s papers were all sorted.
But was it?
Depp is currently in a nasty legal battle with his former business managers, The Management Group (TGM).
New legal documents claim Depp was “fully aware that he was illegally bringing his dogs to Australia” and he “falsely claimed to authorities and in public press interviews that the incident was a big misunderstanding because he supposedly believed his staff had obtained the necessary paperwork.”
TGM also claim he “pressured one of his long-term employees to ‘take the fall’”.
Wonder what Barnaby’s got to say about this fresh upset…
Meanwhile, whether or not Depp knew that he was smuggling Pistol and Boo into Australia is probably the last thing on his mind right now.
TGM has also alleged that he physically abused his ex-wife Amber Heard, and then tried to cover it up.
Here are the details, via court documents obtained by People:
“[Joel Mandel, one of the managers,] was informed well after the fact through communications with various house staff and security that Depp had been extremely volatile and had sometimes ‘gotten physical’ with Heard,” the actor’s former managers at The Management Group (TMG) claim in legal docs filed in May and obtained by PEOPLE.
“Mandel was also later informed that Depp had violently kicked Heard during an incident that took place in or around 2014,” the docs add.
Depp maintained his innocence against Heard’s domestic violence allegations .
Amber was awarded a $7 million divorce settlement in August 2016 (which she says she’ll donated to charity) – this was inclusive of lawyers’ fees to completely drop the case and move on.
