Johnny Depp’s lawyer Camille Vasquez alleged that Amber Heard “would rather be in a fight than have him leave” in closing arguments on Friday (27 May).
Ms Vasquez delivered closing arguments on behalf of Mr Depp in the multi-million dollar defamation trial, which began on 11 April in Virginia’s Fairfax County Circuit Court.
“You’ve heard evidence from Dr Curry...that Ms Heard’s deepest fear is one of abandonment. being left by Mr Depp,” Ms Vasquez told the jury adding, “Mr Depp’s greatest crime in her mind, the fault she confronts him with time and time again, is that he splits.
“He leaves the fight – especially when Ms Heard gets physical. And she couldn’t stand it when he did. You heard from Ms Heard herself, in audio recordings, how upsetting it was to her when Mr Depp would split,” before playing an audio recording of Ms Heard for the courthouse.
“I feel like it’s your first thing. It’s unnecessary. It’s not always [that] you’re splitting cause there’s blows or because there’s yelling or anything. You split many – most times – when I’m still speaking in this volume. And nothing has been thrown or hit or anything,” Ms Heard can be heard saying in the voice clip, part of admitted evidence.
“You saw the barrage of text messages she would send when he would leave, calling him a monster for doing so,” Ms Vasquez said, adding, “You heard from witnesses like [Depp’s bodyguard] Travis McGivern, Tara Roberts [manager of Depp’s private island in the Bahamas], Debbie Llyod [Depp’s nurse] that Ms Heard would claw at Mr Depp, block the elevator, throw a punch when Mr Depp tried to separate himself from a fight.”
“You heard from Mr Depp and Ms Heard’s couples therapist Dr Anderson that Ms Heard reported that when Mr Depp would leave to desescalate a fight, she would strike him to keep him there because she would rather be in a fight than have him leave,” Ms Vasquez told the jury.
Mr Depp is suing his ex-wife for defamation over a 2018 op-ed she penned for The Washington Post where she described herself as a “a public figure representing domestic abuse”.
The Pirates of the Caribbean actor is not named in the article, which is titled “I spoke up against sexual violence – and faced our culture’s wrath. That has to change”.
However Mr Depp claims that it falsely implies that he is a domestic abuser – something that he strongly denies – and that it has left him struggling to land roles in Hollywood. He is suing for $50m.
Ms Heard is countersuing for $100m, accusing Mr Depp of orchestrating a “smear campaign” against her and describing his lawsuit as a continuation of “abuse and harassment”.
