Amber Heard's legal team has called its first witness
Amber Heard and Johnny Depp. Photo-Illustration: The Cut. Photos: Getty Images Amber Heard and Johnny Depp are back in court, another installment in the heated legal volley that began in 2016. This time around, the catalyzing issue is an op-ed Heard wrote for the Washington Post in 2018 identifying herself as a survivor of sexual violence whose career suffered when she named a powerful man in Hollywood as her abuser.
Heard also declined spousal support from Depp, emphasizing that, contrary to what his lawyers suggested in the media, the case wasn’t about money for her. And while certain tabloid reports seemed to suggest Heard had faked her facial injuries, her friend, photographer and writer iO Tillett Wright, came out with an emphatic defense. “BULLS–T,” he wrote in a lengthy Twitter thread. “I’ve had enough. I saw the bruises. Many times. And the fat lip. And the cut head.
In his ruling, the judge agreed that on multiple occasions, Depp seemed to have placed Heard in “fear for her life.” That decision also highlighted some depraved texts from the actor to other members of the industry. To Heard’s former agent, he once wrote that she was “begging for total global humiliation.
In any case, Heard filed to dismiss Depp’s case April 2019, offering new and horrific details about the alleged abuse in the process: Heard alleged that Depp, often under the influence of drugs and alcohol — “We called that version of Johnny ‘the Monster,’” she said in the filing — would beat her, choke her, and at times ripped chunks of her scalp from her head while pulling her hair.
In opening statements, Depp’s lawyers said that Heard wrongfully “presented herself as the face of the Me Too movement — the virtuous representative of innocent women across the country and the world who have truly suffered abuse,” and that her “false allegations had a significant impact on Mr. Depp’s family and his ability to work in the profession he loved.
On April 18, Johnny Depp’s security guard Sean Bett testified in court. He recounted overhearing fights between the couple but said he never witnessed any physical abuse save for one instance when Heard allegedly threw a plastic cup or water bottle at Depp. Bett provided the court with photos of Depp from December 2015 that appear to show injuries on the actor’s face.
Additionally, Depp talked about his path to acting, and the mental and emotional toll fame took on his psyche. Acknowledging the extreme, violent texts he had sent about Heard — that he hoped her “rotting corpse was decomposing in the fucking trunk of a Honda Civic,” for example — he said he was “ashamed of some of the references made,” adding that “pain has to be dealt with humor, something dark, very dark humor.
Throughout Depp’s testimony on April 20, his attorneys played confused clips from squabbles one of them had recorded. The court reviewed photos of bruises and scratches he says he sustained during “confrontations” with Heard, including one encounter where Depp claimed he tried to stop Heard from pushing into the bathroom, only to have her kick the door into his head.
“I’m gonna properly stop the booze thing, darling, drank all night before I picked Amber up,” Depp is said to have texted Bettany in May 2014 following a particularly turbulent flight from Boston to Los Angeles. Depp then catalogued the substances he’d apparently consumed, including but not limited to “half a bottle of whiskey,” cocaine, “1,000 red bull and vodkas,” pills, “two bottles of champers on plane,” all — allegedly — on an empty stomach.
Depp’s cross-examination ended Monday morning, shortly after Heard’s lawyer played more audio recordings in the courtroom from the former couple’s altercations. In one, Heard tells him to “put his cigarettes out on someone else,” and he retorts with, “Shut up, fat ass.” Depp denied putting his cigarette out on Heard and called the recording a “grossly exaggerated moment of Ms. Heard.
She said that Heard also showed symptoms of borderline personality disorder, which falls under the same cluster of disorders as HPD and is characterized by fear of rejection, uncontrollable emotional reactions, and self-harm . Curry asserted that people with personality disorders can be “assaultive as partners” and tend to “make threats using the legal system, threaten to file for a restraining order, claim abuse.
An ACLU representative spoke on Heard’s settlement and the op-ed. On April 28, Terence Dougherty, chief operating officer of the ACLU, testified to the donation Heard was supposed to send the organization from her settlement: So far, $1.3 million of $3.5 million has been paid on her behalf. Though the ACLU believes she has run into “financial difficulties,” Dougherty also said he was not “aware” of any change in Heard’s intention to pay the remainder eventually.
Depp’s team wrapped up its defense on May 2. Depp’s legal team called its last few witnesses to the stand on May 2, including his former bodyguard and manager. The bodyguard, Travis McGivern, said on a live video feed that he had seen Heard punch Depp in the face and, in a separate incident, had seen her spit on Depp and throw a can of Red Bull at him.
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