Amber Heard accuses Johnny Depp of domestic violence and sexual abuse. The Hollywood star denies the allegations and describes himself as a victim. However, some e-mails and photos that he is now confronted with on the witness stand make him look bad.
In the ongoing libel trial in which Johnny Depp and Amber Heard are accusing each other of domestic violence, the Hollywood star has taken the stand one final time to address allegations made by his ex-wife and wife over the past month were made to their witnesses. However, some emails he is said to have written put him in a bad light.
First, Depp addressed some of the statements made by his divorce attorney, Adam Waldman, on which Heard’s counterclaim for defamation is based. Waldman had described the 36-year-old’s allegations of abuse as “fraud” and accused her of “tricking” Depp. The ‘Pirates of the Caribbean’ star denied his lawyer made the statements on his behalf. He only read them when Heard filed her counterclaim. The 58-year-old also commented on his drug use in Australia. Heard accused him of taking “eight to ten MDMA pills” one night in March 2015 and then raping her with a bottle. This accusation is not true, Depp now said, “because otherwise I would be pretty sure dead”.
When asked about his relationship with Heard’s younger sister, Whitney Henríquez, Depp said he grew to love her very quickly. “She was a very sweet child, she was wonderful.” On the one hand, the 34-year-old was a “trustworthy sister and friend” for Heard, but she was also a victim of her aggressive streak. The actress treated Whitney as a “footman” and “a punching bag or a dartboard.” He could testify that Heard once threw wine in her face.
Hearing Heard’s allegations on the witness stand was “terrible, ridiculous, humiliating, painful, wild, unimaginably brutal and cruel” for Depp because they were “all untrue”. “No one is perfect, none of us are. But I’ve never in my life sexually abused anyone, physically abused anyone or done any of these weird, outrageous things.” Depp concluded: “This isn’t easy for any of us, I know that. But no matter what happens, I came here, I spoke the truth and I spoke up for what I’ve been reluctantly carrying on my back for the past six years .”
However, two statements by the 58-year-old raised doubts. Depp initially repeated his accusation that Heard had given him a black eye during their honeymoon on the Orient Express. The jury had already seen photos of it. However, his ex-wife’s defense lawyers now confronted him with a recording that is said to have been taken in Bangkok shortly before the honeymoon. There is also a mark under his eye. Depp countered that it might as well be a shadow.
Shortly thereafter, Depp claimed he had no memory of a wall phone hanging next to the bar in the Australian tenement. Heard claims Depp severed his own fingertip by repeatedly banging the phone against the wall in anger. He accuses his ex of throwing bottles of vodka at him, one of which ruptured his finger, which was lying on the edge of the counter. Heard’s lawyer then read from Depp’s testimony in his defamation trial against Britain’s The Sun. There he admitted in 2020 that he had ripped the phone out of the wall.
Some e-mails that he is said to have written were also unpleasant for Depp. After Heard obtained the restraining order against him in 2016, he wrote of her: “She’s begging for total global humiliation… She’ll get it.” Another email reads: “Molly’s pussy rightly belongs to me. Shouldn’t I just storm in (…)?” He wanted to “change their understanding of what it’s like to be beaten up like a begging mackerel, I need, I want, I take.” The Hollywood star denied ever writing the messages. He doesn’t know who Molly is and doesn’t “write like that,” Depp said, noting that someone else may have borrowed his phone.
Kate Moss, who was in a relationship with the Hollywood star from 1994 to 1998, had the shortest video appearance of the day. During their three-minute hearing, the model denied Heard’s allegations that Depp pushed her down a flight of stairs during their relationship. Instead, she slipped on a wet staircase after a storm while on vacation in Jamaica. Depp carried her back to her room and took care of her medical care.
Metadata expert Norbert Neumeister later testified that some photos showing Heard’s alleged injuries had been edited afterwards. That would have resulted from the metadata and different file sizes. For example, various versions of a photo of a bruise on Heard’s cheek have been heavily altered in color and tone.
Former police officer Beverly Leonard recalled on the witness stand an incident in 2009 in which Heard had a physical altercation with her ex-girlfriend Tasya van Ree. Leonard, who was working at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport at the time, saw Heard grab her then-partner’s arm and rip a chain from her neck. Leonard went to them to intervene and de-escalate the situation. Heard smelled of alcohol and had blurred eyes.
Previously, forensic psychologist Shannon Curry, who diagnosed Heard with borderline personality disorder, was called to the witness stand a second time. She refuted the testimony of Heard’s first witness, psychologist Dawn Hughes, who testified in early May that Heard suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder that was caused by her ex-husband’s violence. She had also challenged Curry’s assessments of the actress.
The legal psychologist has now testified that Hughes misrepresented both her and Curry’s tests and the results she used in Heard’s assessment. On the witness stand, Hughes also “presented her own opinion and Ms. Heard’s self-report as facts”. Hughes had accused Depp of sexual abuse, among other things, with reference to her conversations with Heard. “When Mr Depp was drunk or high, he would throw her on the bed, rip open her nightgown and try to have sex with her,” she said.
Johnny Depp is suing Amber Heard for $50 million over an article she published in the Washington Post in 2018. In it, she claimed to be a victim of domestic violence. She didn’t mention her ex-husband by name, but Depp claims the post ruined his career, damaged his reputation and cost him a lot of money. Heard filed a $100 million counterclaim against Depp. She accuses him and his divorce lawyer, Adam Waldman, of slandering her as a liar, thereby also damaging her career.
Depp and Heard began dating in late 2011 after meeting on the set of The Rum Diary. The Hollywood stars got married in 2015, but the marriage only lasted 15 months. The actor lost a defamation lawsuit against the newspaper “The Sun” in Great Britain in 2020. The newspaper had described Depp in an article as a “wife beater”. Depp denies all allegations of domestic violence.
