Amber Heard has alleged that Johnny Depp physically attacked her over a sex scene in the movie London Fields.
Ms Heard made the allegation on Monday (16 May) as she resumed testifying in the defamation trial opposing her and Mr Depp in Virginia.
She described August 2015 as “a very difficult time” in her and Mr Depp’s marriage. “Johnny’s use continued – well, started again is a better way to describe it. And lo and behold, so did our disagreements,” Ms Heard told the court.
She said she had received an offer for an acting job, “which was already a problem, or problematic”.
“I was considering working on a TV series that had James Franco in it,” she said. “... There was a possibility it would require brief nudity, which I knew I would have to negotiate down, but obviously that was a problem for Johnny. He didn’t want me to do that, didn’t want me to work. And frankly, I needed to.”
Ms Heard has previously alleged that Mr Depp was opposed to her filming sex scenes and wearing revealing outfits.
“There was another film I had coming out that I had previous shot, called London Fields,” she added on Monday. “It was a source of a lot of fighting between us because of the sexuality in the role. It was a constant negotiation between myself and the filmmakers.”
Mr Depp, she said, became “unhappy” with some of what he had heard about the movie.
“He was unhappy with me having done a sex scene in it that he claimed I didn’t tell him about,” she said. “I did not actually film the scene he was speaking of. He demanded that we watch a screener of it, which is like a version of the film before it’s released. We got one sent to where we were at the time, Johnny’s chateau in France.”
Ms Heard said the film contained a sex scene with someone who “looked like [her]”.
“They had used a body double,” she told the court. “Unbeknownst to me, without my permission, they used a body double to do a sex scene. So I have an incredibly jealous man who already is upset with me for breaking the rule that I had a sex scene, on top of that I’m telling him, ‘It wasn’t me, I didn’t shoot that scene.’”
According to Ms Heard’s testimony, Mr Depp became “upset” and “irate”, and called her “a liar, a whore, among other things.”
“That, combined with the fact that I had even entertained doing this job that involved James Franco, was a pressure cooker,” Ms Heard said.
“I called it a week of hell later. Johnny at one point slapped me in the face in our bedroom in the chateau that we were staying in. At another moment he punched me across the jaw. At one point he either pushed or threw, it’s hard to describe to you which of those two it is because I can’t tell you, I went flying into this old church furniture. I later thought I had a concussion. It was the first time I thought I had sustained a concussion.”
Ms Heard has previously testified that Mr Depp allegedly “hated” Mr Franco and once subjected her to a violent grilling about a different sex scene involving Mr Franco.
London Fields was the subject of a legal battle in 2016, when Ms Heard was sued for alleged breach of contract and intentional interference. Ms Heard filed a counter-suit which included the allegation that a body double was used to film sexual footage. The dispute was settled in 2018, IndieWire reported at the time, and London Fields was released that same year.
While testifying on Monday, Ms Heard also said she had found a folder on Mr Depp’s computer titled “NO FUN FOR JD”, which contained “a collection of pictures of me from various red carpets starting on the press tours that I had been on” – more specifically pictures of “what he thought was inappropriate clothing, side boob, cleavage.”
Mr Depp has sued Ms Heard for alleged defamation over an op-ed she wrote in 2018 for The Washington Post, in which she describes herself as “a public figure representing domestic abuse”.
“The op-ed depended on the central premise that Ms Heard was a domestic abuse victim and that Mr Depp perpetrated domestic violence against her,” Mr Depp’s complaint alleges in part, calling the claim of domestic abuse “categorically and demonstrably false”.
He has asked for $50m in damages.
Ms Heard has counter-sued Mr Depp, accusing him of allegedly orchestrating a “smear campaign” against her and describing his own lawsuit as a continuation of “abuse and harassment.”
She has asked for $100m in damages.
