Amber Heard Disses Australia Deputy Prime Minister, Names New Pooch After Politician Who Threatened To Deport Her Dogs Pistol & Boo
Dec. 27 2021, Published 9:01 a.m. ET
Amber Heard is continuing to mock the Australian politician who threatened to deport her precious pooches during that infamous dog-smuggling incident back in 2015.
Over the Christmas weekend, the 35-year-old actress revealed to her millions of social media followers that she had added a third pup to the mix.
"Meet the newest member of the Heard family, Barnaby Joyce!" the Aquaman star captioned a photo of herself standing in front of a Christmas tree while carrying a large, shaggy hound wearing a red bandana.
Barnaby Joyce the dog – not to be confused with Barnaby Joyce the deputy prime minister of the Australia – joins Yorkshire Terriers Pistol and Boo, who made headlines over six years ago when their mother was accused breaching the country's strict biosecurity laws after failing to declare them when she flew into Queensland on a private jet.
Johnny Depp's then-wife also did not abide by Australia's 10-day pet quarantine policy.
At the time, Joyce gave Heard and Depp a 50-hour deadline to send the dogs back home or turn them over to customs authorities to be euthanized.
"It's time that Pistol and Boo buggered off back to the United States," he told the former couple.
Since then, the actress has reveled publicly in many of Joyce's miseries, including when he lost his seat in Parliament in 2017 after it was discovered that he was actually a New Zealander.
Despite her seemingly flippant attitude about the dog-smuggling scandal, the issue has resurfaced.
This past October, it was revealed that Australian officials had launched a new investigation into statements she had made during the initial probe, accusing her of possible perjury.
Heard's excuse at the time was that the necessary paperwork simply "slipped through the cracks," insisting there was "no attempt to deceive." After issuing a public apology and blaming the mishap on both ignorance and lack of sleep, she managed to avoid charges.
However, the ordeal was dredged up due to statements made during Depp's United Kingdom libel trial with media outlet The Sun.
Last summer, the 58-year-old actor's former estate manager, Kevin Murphy, called Heard's explanation into question, telling the London court that she had ordered him to lie under oath about the dog-smuggling incident.
Murphy swore that prior to her trip, he explained to Heard "several times the fact that trying to take the dogs into Australia without completing the mandatory process was illegal and could result in very harsh penalties including euthanizing the dogs."
When the controversy went public, he said the actress demanded that he provide a "false statement" to the Australian court, saying that she didn't know anything about the process.
The Daily Mail confirmed that the country's Department of Agriculture, Water and the Environment then quietly reopened a criminal investigation into Heard's previous claims. Officials abroad enlisted the help of the Federal Bureau of Investigation to track down witnesses in the U.S.
According to the outlet, at least one of those witnesses has already provided investigators with a lengthy statement and "a trove" of emails that allegedly implicate the actress.
Sources close to the situation believe she could very well be charged.
Under the Queensland penal code, perjury carries a maximum prison sentence of 14 years, while subornation of perjury can result in seven years behind bars.
It's unlikely that Heard will be extradited to Australia, but she could potentially risk arrest if she tries to enter the country again.
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"She could just ignore the whole thing and never go back, but a huge number of movies are shot in Australia, including Aquaman, the movie for which she's most well-known," said an insider. "Alternatively, Amber could go back there and face her detractors. That's often her style. It's pretty evident by now that she's not one for backing down in the face of legal threats."
The actress' U.S. attorney denied that her client was facing a fresh probe when contacted by The Mail, while a spokesperson for the Australian government insisted that the investigation was very much a go.
