The defamation trial opposing Johnny Depp and Amber Heard put the Hollywood heavyweights’ tumultuous relationship on full display inside a courtroom in Fairfax, Virginia.
Depp sued Heard, his ex-wife, for alleged defamation over an op-ed she wrote in 2018 in The Washington Post, in which she describes herself as “a public figure representing domestic abuse”.
Heard countersued her ex-husband, accusing him of allegedly orchestrating a “smear campaign” against her and describing his own lawsuit as a continuation of “abuse and harassment.”
Depp asked for $50m in damages; Heard asked for $100m and immunity against Depp’s claims.
On Wednesday, 1 June, the jury returned a verdict in favour of Mr Depp and ordered Ms Heard to pay him $10m in compensatory damages and $5m in punitive damages.
Ms Heard won a single part out of three listed in her counterclaim and Mr Depp was in turn ordered to pay her $2m.
Over six weeks of testimony, which began on 11 April and concluded on 26 May, the jury heard from a string of witnesses including the couple’s former marriage counselor, their friends, pyschiatrists, surgeons and entertainment experts - as well as Depp and Heard themselves.
The testimony painted a captivating and disturbing portrait of the actors’ doomed marriage, laying bare their violent fights, drug use and vicious words to each other.
Here are some of the biggest moments:
Week one:
Heard’s attorney brings new sexual assault allegation
During opening arguments on 12 April, Heard’s attorney Elaine Bredehoft alleged that Depp sexually assaulted Heard with a liquor bottle on one occasion.
Depp shook his head in court as Bredehoft recounted the alleged incident. His attorney Camille Vasquez disputed the allegation of sexual assault in court. A spokesperson called the claims “fictitious” in a statement to The Independent.
Marriage counselor describes ‘mutual abuse’
A video deposition of Heard and Depp’s former marriage counselor Dr Laurel Anderson aired on Thursday (14 April). She discussed her past sessions with the couple.
Asked whether Heard had ever reported any physical violence by Depp to her, Dr Anderson said yes. Asked whether she had seen photos, she said she had but doesn’t remember when. Asked whether “there was violence from Depp toward Amber”, she said: “Yes, you’re right.”
“He had been well controlled for, I don’t know – 20, 30 years, and both were victims of abuse in their homes, but I thought he had been well controlled for decades,” she added. “And then with Heard he was triggered and they engaged in what I saw as mutual abuse.”
Depp’s friend ejected as witness
Gina Deuters, who is married to a member of Depp’s staff and is herself a close friend of the actor’s, gave testimony in person on Thursday (14 April).
She answered questions about Depp’s drugs and alcohol use, telling the court she had seen him use weed and cocaine occasionally, and that she had seen him drink alcohol. Deuters testified that she had never seen Depp be violent or angry after using any substances or drinking alcohol.
At one point during her testimony, Heard’s legal team asked for permission to approach Judge Penney Azcarate. The judge conferred with the attorneys, then sent the jury out for a brief recess.
Judge Azcarate then asked Deuters: “Have you been watching the trial this past week?”
Deuters replied: “I’ve seen clips of it online, yes.”
The judge then confirmed that Deuters had watched clips of witness testimony, after which she told Deuters she was excused and her testimony was stricken from the record.
Week two:
The metaphorical heat in the courtroom ramped up dramatically on 19 April, when Depp took the stand. He testified under questioning from his own lawyers for two days before facing cross examination.
Depp is ‘not embarrassed’ to testify on fall from ‘Cinderella to Quasimodo’
“I can’t say that I’m embarrassed because I know that I’m doing the right thing,” Depp said after taking the witness stand on 19 April.
The actor told the court that he did feel exposed by the litigation, insisting that despite his successful career, he had always been a private person who had tried to shield his two children from “hordes of paparazzi’ and that he did not want them to see their parents as “novelties”.
But, he said he wanted to clear his name after it was smeared throughout the industry, saying: “It’s strange when you’re Cinderella, so to speak, and in 0.6 seconds you’re Quasimodo.”
Depp says Heard ‘grossly embellished’ substance abuse
The star said from the witness stand that his drug and alcohol use had been “an easy target” for the actress to hit after their marriage ultimately broke down. But Depp said he didn’t use for the sake of partying, but rather to dull the pain of past trauma.
“It has never been for the party effect, it has been trying to numb the things inside that have, that can plague someone who has experienced trauma,” he told the court in Virginia.
“The characterisation of my substance, of my quote-unquote substance abuse that has been delivered by Heard is grossly embellished, and I am sorry to say, but a lot of it is just plainly false.
“I think that it was easy, it was an easy target for her to hit. Because once you have trusted somebody for a certain amount of years and you have told them all the secrets of your life, that information can then, of course, be used against you.”
Depp describes his first kiss with Heard on set of The Rum Diary
The actor said that he and Heard had locked lips in a scene in which she walked in on him in the shower.
And he described how the pair continued the passion back in his trailer later in the day.
“I think there was something in the kiss in the shower that was real,” he added.
“So that day after work, Heard had come to my trailer and I was sitting there listening to old blues stuff and we had a glass of wine and we kissed.
“At that point my trailer was the only trailer in the parking lot, she had the mind to stay in the trailer for a while with me but I did not think that was a good idea on any level as there were nine Teamsters outside waiting to move the trailer.”
Depp said mother’s abuse ‘tore up’ his family
Depp also spoke at length about his difficult childhood, saying that his mother, Betty Sue Palmer, “had the ability to be as cruel as anyone can be”.
Describing his mother’s violence, Depp said “an ashtray” could be “flung at you”. He added that she would hit her children in the head and that she could use a “high heeled shoe or a telephone or whatever was handy”.
He added that he started being able to see when his mother was about to “head into a situation where she was going to be riled up and somebody was going to get it. Generally, it was me”.
Depp said the family learned to deal with the physical abuse but that the verbal and psychological abuse “tore us up”.
He described his father as “kind”, “quiet”, and “shy” who would “amazingly remain very stoic” when Depp’s mother “delivered the pain”.
“He swallowed it, he took it,” Depp said, adding that he once saw his father punch a concrete wall, shattering his hand. “He remained a gentleman.”
Depp said his father leaving led his mother into a “deep, dark depression” and he mimicked her stumbling around the home after taking a multitude “of pills to try to take herself out”. She survived after having her stomach pumped at hospital.
He said his mother seemed to “calm down” after taking some “nerve pills” and that he, at the age of 11, would take one as well because he wanted “to calm down” but he “didn’t know how to” and that he wanted to “escape feeling so much”.
“That was the beginning – when I realized that nerve pills calm the nerves,” he said, adding that he had taken all the drugs “he was aware of” by the age of 15.
Actor reveals that he never saw Pirates of the Caribbean
The actor also said he had never seen one of his most successful films – Pirates of the Caribbean.
Depp first appeared as Captain Jack Sparrow in 2003 in Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl.
The actor went on to also appear in several sequels, including Dead Man’s Chest, At World’s End, On Stranger Tides, and Dead Men Tell No Tales.
“I thought that it had all the hallmarks of a Disney film – that is to say, a kind of a predictable three-act structure,” he said about his first thought about the first script. “The character of Captain Jack was more like a swashbuckler type that would swing in shirtless and be the hero.”
He then revealed that he never saw the film.
“I didn’t see it. But I believe that the film did pretty well, apparently, and they wanted to keep going, making more and I was fine to do that,” he said.
“It’s not like you become that person, but if you know that character to the degree that I did – because he was not what the writers wrote, so they really weren’t able to write for him… Once you know the character better than the writers, that’s when you have to be true to the character and add your words.”
Depp likens relationship with Heard to his relationship with his mother
On Wednesday, Depp likened his marriage to Heard to his fraught relationship with his mother, calling it an “endless parade of insults”.
He recalled how “demeaning name calling”, being “berated” and “made a fool of” by Heard would frequently escalate into full scale arguments.
“If there’s a dialogue between two people, both people need to speak. But there was no way to fit a word in. It was a sort of rapid-fire, endless parade of insults,” he said, adding that he “was not allowed to be right and not allowed to have a voice”.
“You start to slowly realise that you are in a relationship with your mother, in a sense. And I know that sounds perverse and obtuse, but the fact is, some people search for weaknesses in people,” he said.
Actor’s tattoos are discussed
Depp was asked about Heard’s claims that the first time he struck her was in response to a comment about a tattoo.
The actor said that incident did not happen and reiterated that he never hit Heard or any other woman.
He added that this specific allegation never made sense to him because he would have no reason to strike a woman for making fun of his ink.
Probed further on whether Heard objected to any of his tattoos, he replied that he had “Winona forever” – a reference to his previous relationship with actor Winona Ryder – changed to “Wino forever”. It wasn’t clear which iteration Heard objected to or if she influenced the change.
Heard admits to hitting Depp in audio
Heard could be heard admitting to hitting Depp on a recording played in court.
Heard and Depp argued about the physical altercation on the recording, during which she said she hit Depp but she didn’t “deck” him. She also told Depp to “grow up”, calling him a “baby”.
“You told me to do it. You told me ‘go do that’,” Heard said on the recording.
“You punched me in the f***ing thing,” Depp said.
“You figured it all out,” Heard responded. “I didn’t punch you by the way.”
“I’m sorry that I didn’t hit you across the face in a proper slap,” she added. “I was hitting you, I was not punching you. You’re not punched.”
Depp describes finger injury
Depp described in graphic detail a fight with Heard during which he claims she threw a vodka bottle at him, severing his finger.
“She then grabbed that bottle and threw that at me,” Depp said, demonstrating to the jury how he was sitting at the time. He said his fingers were resting on the edge of the bar and that the large vodka bottle “made contact and shattered everywhere”.
“I felt no pain at first all,” he said. “I felt heat and as if something was dripping down my hand.”
“I was looking directly at my bones sticking out,” he added. “Blood was just pouring out.”
Depp explains why daughter Lily-Rose Depp didn’t attend wedding
Depp was asked about his wedding to Heard on day two of his testimony.
During his testimony, Depp said his daughter, Lily-Rose Depp, the eldest of his two children with Vanessa Paradis, did not attend his wedding to Heard in 2015.
“Lily-Rose did not come to the wedding,” he said. “She and Heard were not on particularly great terms for several reasons.”
Depp cringes as he describes seeing photo of faeces on his bed
Depp described seeing a photo of faeces on his bed days after a fight with Heard.
Depp said on that he didn’t see Heard between 22 April and 21 May 2016 as he had “received some news that was as absurd and grotesque and cruel, and then I was shown a picture of what the problem was”.
He said he was shown a photo of “our bed and on my side of the bed was human faecal matter, so I understood why it wasn’t a good time to go down there”.
Depp said his “initial response” was to “laugh”.
“It was so outside, it was so bizarre and so grotesque that I could only laugh,” he added.
Depp tells how his mother’s death made him realise he wanted a divorce from Heard
Depp said his mother’s death in 2016 caused him to realise his marriage to Heard had to end.
“When those you love leave, we’re the ones stuck with the pain, with the grieving. But I was glad that my kids got to see her and give her her send-off, I suppose. But it opened my eyes quite a lot to a number of things,” he said.
Depp added: “It opened my eyes to the fact that – yes, try, in relationships, whether friendships, whether courtships, whether marriage. Try your best. If it’s not going to work, it’s not going to work.”
Depp said he had then decided that he would call Heard and inform her of Palmer’s death, as well as his intention to file for divorce.
Heard filed for divorce from Depp on 23 May 2016 after 15 months of marriage.
Depp asked about texts saying he wanted ‘burn and drown’ Heard during cross-examination
Depp was asked about texts saying he wanted to “burn” and “drown” Heard. Mr Depp was asked if English actor Paul Bettany was “a good friend you’ve done drugs with” – a question Depp said was strange, but he later confirmed both aspects.
According to court documents, Depp texted Mr Bettany “Let’s burn Amber!!!” on 11 June 2013.
“Having thought it through, I don’t think we should burn Amber – she’s delightful company and easy on the eye, plus I’m not sure she’s a witch,” Mr Bettany responded. “We could of course try the English course of action in these predicaments – we do a drowning test. Thoughts? N.B I have a pool.”
“Let’s drown her before we burn her!!! I will f*** her burnt corpse afterwards to make sure she is dead...” Depp responded.
“My thoughts entirely!” Mr Bettany wrote. “Let’s be CERTAIN before we pronounce her a witch.”
On 30 May 2014, Depp texted Mr Bettany saying, “I’m gonna properly stop the booz thing, darling...Drank all night before I picked Amber up....Ugly, mate...No food for days...”
Heard lawyer Ben Rottenborn also read a text from Depp to Heard’s sister, which read, “I never ever want to lay eyes on that filthy whore Amber”.
Former security guard Jerry Judge texted Depp on 26 April 2015, “Johnny it is lovely to see how you and Amber are so happy...” to which Mr Depp responded “Very, very kind mate!! All I had to do was send the monster away and lock him up!!”
On 28 June 2015, Depp texted his personal doctor David Kipper, “Amber and I have been absolutely perfect for 3 f***** months solid!! I have locked my monster child away in a cage deep within and it has f***** worked!”
Depp has testified that he only used the word “monster” to describe himself to placate Heard.
Depp elicits laughs with happy hour joke as he recalls doing drugs with Marilyn Manson
Depp got a laugh from the courtroom as he said every hour is “happy hour” and recalled doing drugs with Marilyn Manson, giving him a pill to stop him from talking so much.
Mr Rottenborn asked Depp about his drug use, to which Depp said he “found” drugs at an early age. Depp said earlier in the trial that he first took one of his mother’s “nerve pills” at the age of 11.
Depp said he was struggling in the spring of 2013.
“You would sometimes drink whiskey during the morning at that time?” Mr Rottenborn asked.
“I mean, isn’t happy hour any time,” Depp responded.
Depp reacts to audio of himself moaning ‘like a pained animal’ after mixing opioids and alcohol
Audio of Depp moaning in pain after mixing opioids and alcohol was played in court as the actor was cross-examined by lawyers for Heard.
On 24 May 2014, Depp and Heard flew on a private plane from Boston to Los Angeles.
Mr Rottenborn read an email from Depp to Heard sent the following day. “Once again, I find myself in a place of shame and regret,” Mr Rottenborn said, quoting the email.
In court on Thursday, Depp didn’t agree that he was “very drunk” on that flight.
Mr Rottenborn went back to the UK transcript in which Depp was asked if he had been drinking or taken drugs before or during the flight, to which Depp said, “sure, for the purposes of getting through this, let’s say yes – everything you have said – I agree”.
Depp said he was “caving in” to the questioning at the time.
The Heard legal team then played three excerpts from a piece of audio of Depp seemingly moaning in pain.
“It sounds like a pained animal and it’s my voice,” Depp said in response to the audio recording.
In the last excerpt, Depp’s former security guard Jerry Judge can be heard saying, “I’m going to stay with this f***ing idiot in case he gets sick”.
“The recording of the pained noises is not from that flight,” Depp said, without specifying where and when the recording was made.
Depp reacts to photo Heard took of him asleep with spilt ice cream while he was on opioids
The jury was shown a photo of Depp asleep on a couch with ice cream spilt across his lap.
Depp said he had worked a 17-hour day, taken some opioids, and that Heard gave him the ice cream “because she knew what was going to happen”.
Depp said the photo had been taken in Boston and that “Ms Heard asked me to hold the ice cream as she noticed that I was on the nod – that means falling asleep – from the 17-hour day that I had worked and also the opiates that I had ingested”.
“And if you’ll notice, my right hand is in my pocket, so I wasn’t participating in the festival of ice cream,” Depp added. “I was holding her ice cream because she knew what was going to happen – that I would fall asleep and it would drop and that was a wonderful picture to take for her.”
Mr Rottenborn asked Depp if it was her fault that the photo had been taken.
“She snapped it,” Depp said.
Depp trial shown messages he scrawled in blood and paint after severing finger in ‘vodka bottle fight’
On Thursday, the court was shown messages and “reminders” Depp scrawled in blood and paint after severing his finger in a fight during which he claims Heard threw two vodka bottles at him.
Among the pillars of Depp’s case is his claim that he was a victim of abuse by Heard.
Of the March 2015 incident in Australia which left him with a grisly finger injury, he told the court: “It was all getting too crazy.”
Being in the middle of something like a nervous breakdown, Depp said he started “to write in my own blood on the walls”.
“Little reminders from our past that essentially represented lies that she had told me and lies that I had caught her in,” he said, adding that he hid in a bathroom and texted his doctor to come over.
On Thursday, as Depp was questioned by Mr Rottenborn, he said there was “quite a bit of damage to the house during the entire incident” in Australia.
He added that there was “a coffee cup stuck into the screen” of the TV.
Mr Rottenborn said a window was broken and that Depp drew “a penis” on a painting, and that there were messages written in blood and paint all over the walls and furniture.
Depp suggested that Heard could have drawn the penis, saying that doing so was not “on top” of his mind.
Mr Rottenborn quoted Depp from his UK trial against The Sun, during which he said that “I recall painting on a lampshade, on a wall, on a mirror. I remember dunking my finger into paint thinner and using paint when I had run out of blood to paint with, and I could have defaced the painting I suppose, but I do not remember a painting specifically”.
Heard came to Australia after filming London Fields with Billy Bob Thornton. Mr Rottenborn said Depp wrote, “starring Billy Bob” and “Easy Amber” in one of the messages.
Week three:
Depp took the stand for the fourth day on Monday 25 April, wrapping up his testimony in the afternoon.
Depp says he felt ‘blinding hurt’ when he read Amber Heard op-ed before being dropped from ‘Pirates’
On Monday, Depp said in court that he felt a “blinding hurt” when he read Heard’s op-ed before being dropped from the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise.
Depp said that it “was like somebody had hit me in the back of the head with a 2x4” when he read Heard’s op-ed.
Depp calls Amber Heard ‘fat a**’ and ‘c***’ in recordings of shouting matches played in court
Depp could be heard calling Heard a “fat a**” and a “c***” on recordings played in court.
He also referred to their arguments having the potential to become a “bloodbath” on the tapes played by Heard’s legal team, as a supposedly tearful Heard could be heard saying “Listen to me cry.”
“Go put your f***ing cigarettes out on someone else, you f***ing have consequences for your actions. That’s it,” Heard says on the first recording that was played in court on Monday morning.
“Shut up, fat a**,” Depp responds.
Depp told Heard’s attorney, Ben Rottenborn, that his ex-wife “greatly exaggerated” and that he hadn’t put out a cigarette on her or thrown a cigarette in her direction.
Depp says fights with Amber Heard made him ‘vomit’ as he denies putting cigarette out on her
Depp testified in court that he would become “physically ill” and that he would have to go away and “vomit” during fights with Heard.
He also rejected the notion that he had put out cigarettes on Heard, something she suggested in a recording played in court earlier on Monday.
Depp was asked about a recording played earlier in the proceedings in which Heard claimed that he vomited in his sleep often.
“When someone brings up that you vomit in your sleep every night – first, I think you’d be aware of it,” Depp said. “The first thing I would do is seek medical attention.”
“I’ve never vomited in my sleep every night,” Depp said. “There were times when I would get physically ill from the endless shots that you take when you’re unable to take it anymore.”
Depp’s house manager recalls finding the tip of actor’s finger after vodka bottle fight
Ben King, who managed Depp’s homes in London and Australia, took the witness stand on 25 April and described finding the tip of the actor’s finger on the kitchen floor after a 2015 fight with Heard.
Mr King said he was called to the Australia home on a Sunday and found Depp’s doctor David Kipper “rummaging through a bin” in the kitchen.
“He said Mr Depp had sustained an injury to his finger and he was looking for the fingertip that he said had been severed,” Mr King added.
The house manager said he left Dr Kipper in the kitchen and went downstairs “to search”.
Mr King testified that he was the one to find the fingertip in the “bar area” of the house, adding that as he walked downstairs, he noticed that “a big chunk had been taken out of the marble staircase”.
He said he found broken glass, a “collapsed” ping pong table, and lots of cans surrounding the “bar area”.
Mr King said he found the fingertip “directly below the bar” and that another “big chunk” had been taken out of the marble top of the bar.
Psychologist hired by Depp says Heard has two personality disorders
On 26 April, a psychologist hired by Depp’s legal team has told the court that Heard has two personality disorders – borderline and histrionic disorder.
Dr Shannon Curry said that she met with Heard on “two separate dates” as she conducted her evaluation at the direction of Depp’s team – 10 and 17 December 2021. She said they spent 12 hours together and that “the result of Ms Heard’s evaluation supported two diagnoses – borderline personality disorder and histrionic personality disorder”.
Dr Curry said Heard “externalises blame” and can be “self-righteous”, “judgemental” and has anger.
She added that there’s a “desperate fear of abandonment” among those with borderline disorder and that the reaction to that is to try to keep a significant other close and this behaviour can become extreme.
“All of it is like pistons of an engine, kind of firing off and igniting one another,” Dr Curry said. “But when somebody is afraid of being abandoned, by their partner or by anybody else in their environment and they have this disorder, they’ll make desperate attacks to prevent that from happening.”
“And those desperate attempts could be physical aggression, it could be threatening, it could be harming themselves, but these are behaviours that are very extreme and very concerning to the people around them,” she added.
“Over time, the anger, the explosive anger, that they show when somebody is needing space, or when somebody is really not doing anything wrong, because a lot of times they read into things that they perceive as being a slight to them or being somebody intending to harm them that actually isn’t happening. They’ll exaggerate it, and they’ll explode,” Dr Curry said. “They’ll react in this heightened manner that is just exhausting for their partners.”
Dr Curry said those with borderline disorder can appear charming and socially sophisticated, but they can also blow up and be unaware of problems in their thinking.
They’re very concerned with appearances, can be cruel, and may struggle to admit faults, prompting a lot of issues in close relationships. Reactions can be violent or aggressive and they can be abusive to their partner to physically stop them from leaving.
They may also use the legal system to stop their partner from leaving by threatening to file a restraining order or claiming that they have been abused.
“One of the most common tactics that they’ll use is actually physically assaulting and then getting harmed themselves, but mostly, we call this ‘administrative violence.’ Essentially this is saying that they’ll make threats using the legal system,” Dr Curry said. “So they might say that they are going to file a restraining order or claim abuse, or they might do these things to essentially try to keep their partner from leaving in the moment.”
Court told Heard has only given ACLU half of $3.5m from divorce settlement
Terence Dougherty, the chief operating officer and general counsel of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), appeared at the trial on 28 April and spoke about the $3.5m Heard pledged to give the organisation from her divorce settlement with Depp.
Mr Dougherty said that $350,000 was paid directly by Ms Heard, $100,000 was paid through Mr Depp, $500,000 was paid through a donor-advised fund, and that $350,000 was also paid via a donor-advised fund – for a total donation of $1.3m.
He said Ms Heard was put forward as an ambassador for the ACLU following the pledge to provide such a large donation but he added that the full amount hadn’t been sent by the time of the deposition.
“Ms Heard spoke with such clarity and expertise on issues of gender-based violence, that [ACLU representatives] decided she would be an appropriate person to ask to become an ACLU ambassador,” he said.
It was at this point that the idea came up to write an op-ed, which later led to this trial.
Mr Dougherty said four lawyers at the ACLU reviewed the op-ed before it was sent to The Post. He added that he wasn’t involved in this process and those lawyers were women’s rights specialists.
He was also shown an email which suggested Heard wanted to include more detail about her divorce from Depp in the op-ed, but lawyers took all references out.
Agent says Depp didn’t lost any film roles as a result of Heard’s op-ed
On 28 April, Depp and Heard’s former talent agent Christian Carino testified that he wasn’t aware of any film roles that Depp may have lost as a result of his ex-wife’s 2018 op-ed.
But Mr Carino added that he believes Heard’s allegations of abuse cost Depp the job of playing Captain Jack Sparrow in the sixth instalment of the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise.
Heard’s lawyer asked Mr Carino, who previously represented both Depp and Heard, what specific legal case most affected Depp’s career.
“My opinion is that Amber’s accusations would have had the most dramatic impact on his off-screen reputation. I’m not talking about any one specific accusation,” Mr Carino, who began working for Mr Depp in late 2016, said.
In the same testimony, Mr Carino stated that Heard dated Elon Musk while trying to reconcile with Depp.
Week four
Security describes Heard punching Depp in the face
Depp security guard Travis McGivern testified on 2 May and spoke of the actor’s shock when Heard allegedly punched him in the face during a fight in March 2015.
Mr McGivern said Heard had left during an argument and came back with her sister Whitney. At that point, the bodyguard said that he felt it was time to get Depp away from the situation.
Then he said he “heard and saw a closed fist contact Mr Depp in the left side of his face”, noting that it was Ms Heard’s fist.
“The initial look on” Mr Depp’s face was “shock”, the guard said, adding that he moved him and told him they were leaving.
Forensic accountant says Depp lost $40m after Heard op-ed
Forensic accountant Michael Spindler told the court on 3 May that he was tasked for this case with reviewing Depp’s lost earnings. He analysed the time between 18 December 2018, when Heard’s op-ed was published, and 31 October 2020.
“I concluded that Mr Depp suffered lost earnings of approximately $40m,” he said. Mr Spindler said Depp’s removal from the sixth Pirates of the Caribbean film was one of the main reasons for his estimation.
Agent Jack Whigham testified on Monday that a $22.5m deal had been struck for the film.
Psychologist hired by Heard says she has PSTD from abuse
Forensic psychologist Dr Dawn Hughes testified for Heard’s defence on 3 and 4 May and said that the actress suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) stemming from domestic violence.
She also dismissed the claim that the couple was responsible for “mutual abuse”, as testified by their marriage counsellor earlier in the trial.
Dr Hughes told the court that her “main opinion” is that Heard’s “report of intimate partner violence” as well as the documents she was looked at in connection to the case are “consistent with what we know in the field” concerning intimate partner violence.
She also said that Ms Heard “demonstrated very clear psychological and traumatic effects” from statements made via Depp’s lawyer, which have prompted Heard to countersue Depp.
“I diagnosed Ms Heard with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder… and the cause was the intimate partner violence by Mr Depp,” Dr Hughes said.
Heard describes ‘painful’ legal proceedings
Beginning her testimony on 4 May, Heard was asked how she felt about the fact that Depp is suing her.
“I struggle to find the words to describe how painful this is,” she replied.
“This is horrible for me, to sit here for weeks and relive everything – hear people that I knew, some well, some not, my ex-husband with whom I shared a life, speak about our lives in the way that they have. This is the most painful and difficult thing I have ever gone through, for sure.”
Heard recounts alleged physical and verbal abuse
Heard alleged Depp would make comments about her wardrobe, and recounted what she described as “a blow-up”.
“At first, it was just he’d throw something, smash some things,” she said. “He loves to smash up a place, an apartment, furniture. That’s what it started with, a glass. He threw a glass at me. I remember, it was summer. And he just threw this glass across the kitchen. It didn’t hit me. It shattered behind me, and I remember thinking that it very easily could have hit me.”
Heard alleged Depp would use disparaging language with her, calling her a “whore”, adding: “It didn’t start with using the ‘whore’ word, it was just comments, until it would escalate”.
She recalled what she described as a “pattern of escalation, where he’d throw a glass or turn over a table, then he would hit the wall and he would hit the wall really close to my head.”
“You know, like, when I’m standing there, you know, just hit the wall, screaming at me,” she added.
“Then he would disappear and get clean and sober, and he’d come back and tell me that he was done drinking, he was over it, it was done, he’d cleaned himself up, he had done it before and he would do it again. And then he would go back to this wonderful, almost unreal – real, but unbelievably nice, sensitive, kind, warm, generous, interesting, funny man that I loved.
“And he would make me feel so loved. I would feel so distant from that thing that was so scary that I would not even recognise it. That was how our relationship kind of started developing that first year.”
Asked to recount the first time Depp allegedly hit her, Heard said: “It’s seemingly so stupid, so insignificant. I will never forget it. It changed my life.”
She alleged she and Depp were “sitting on the couch... talking ... having a normal conversation.
“There was no fighting, no argument, nothing,” she said. “He was drinking and I didn’t realise at the time but I think he was using cocaine because there was a jar – a jar of cocaine on the table.”
She said she asked Depp about a tattoo on his arm.
“And to me, it just looked like black marks,” she said. “I didn’t know what it said. It just looked like a muddled, faded tattoo that was hard to read.”
Heard said Depp told her the tattoo said “wino”.
“I thought he was joking, because it didn’t look like it said that at all. And I laughed. It was that simple. I just laughed, because I thought he was joking. And he slapped me across the face,” she said.
“And I laughed. I laughed because I didn’t know what else to do. I thought, ‘This must be a joke. This must be a joke.’ I didn’t know what was going on. I just stared at him, kind of laughing still, thinking that he was going to start laughing too, to tell me it was a joke, but he didn’t. He said, ‘You think it’s so funny? You think it’s funny, b****? You think you’re a funny b****?’ And he slapped me again. I was clear it wasn’t a joke anymore.”
Heard alleges Johnny Depp sexually assaulted her while looking for his drugs
Heard alleged that Depp once sexually assaulted her while searching for his drugs, after accusing her of hiding his cocaine.
“He starts patting me down or saying he’s patting me down, I can’t recall – but he ripped my dress, the strap top part of my dress,” she told the court. “I had just dyed this thing myself, pink ... He’s grabbing my breasts, he’s touching my thighs, he rips my underwear off and he proceeds to do a cavity search. He said he was looking for his drugs, his cocaine. His coke.”
Heard added: “I was wondering how somebody who didn’t do cocaine and was against it – that was in and of itself causing problems in our relationship. How could I hide, why would I hide his drugs? He was insinuating that I was doing it, or something? It made no sense. And he was telling me, ‘We’re gonna conduct a cavity search.’ He just shoved his fingers inside me. And I just stood there staring at the stupid light. I didn’t know what to do. I just stood there while he did that, he twisted his fingers around.”
Week five
Heard begs Depp to stop ‘smear campaign’ as court hears emotional audio
Ms Heard returned to the stand to finish her direct examination on 16 May. Emotional audiowas played to the court as Ms Heard said she begged her then-husband to stop calling her “a liar” about his alleged abuse.
In the audio clip, Ms Heard is heard speaking to Mr Depp in a recorded conversation in June 2016 – one month after she filed for divorce from him.
“I’m being called a liar and a gold-digger,” she is heard saying.
“I’m not lying about any of this s*** and I’m not after any of your money.”
She told the court that she wanted him to stop calling her “a liar” and stop the “smear campaign” that he had allegedly launched against her.
Heard breaks down saying she filed for divorce from Depp as she feared she ‘wouldn’t survive’
Ms Heardsaid she filed for divorce from Mr Depp because she feared she “wouldn’t survive” if she stayed in the relationship.
“I knew if I didn’t I’d likely not literally survive,” she said, choking back tears.
Ms Heard told jurors that her decision to divorce her then-husband was “the hardest thing I ever had to do”.
But she said that she realised she had to do it because the “monster” and domestic violence had become the “normal”.
“The monster had been this thing that was now the normal and not the exception. The violence was now the normal and not the exception,” she sobbed.
“I believe he would have taken it too far and I wouldn’t be here.”
Heard recounts police being called after Depp attacked her as court shown photos of her injuries
Ms Heard shared her account of an incident during which she says police were called to her apartment after Mr Depp attacked her.
Ms Heard was asked about the alleged events of 21 May 2016 and said she and Mr Depp hadn’t seen each other for about a month at the time. Ms Heard said she agreed to see Mr Depp following his mother’s death, and that she was under the impression that he had started drinking and using drugs again at the time.
“He said he really needed his wife. He had lost his mother and he missed his wife, he really needed his wife. He said it over and over again,” she said. “I felt torn, I felt conflicted. Obviously the situation hadn’t gotten better with Johnny, mentally, and I was afraid that all the work and progress and distance I had finally got on it, on the relationship for the first time I had a month of distance on it, I didn’t want that to be undone but I was also affected by the fact that his mother had passed.”
She said a plan was made for Mr Depp to visit her during the day, which she thought would help mitigate his drinking as “night is a little bit more dangerous”.
“He came over and we sat on the couch and it was relatively peaceful. I could tell that he was inebriated, but in my head it made sense. He wasn’t incoherent. It was peaceful,” she said, adding that Mr Depp started talking about feces, accusing one of Ms Heard’s friends of having left a “prank” for him in Ms Heard’s bed. Ms Head said she tried telling Mr Depp that didn’t make sense, but that he kept talking about it.
Eventually, Ms Heard said she called the friend she said Mr Depp claimed was responsible, iO Tillett Wright.
Ms Heard said her friend reminded her that she “wasn’t safe”.
“iO said, ‘Amber, get out of the house. Get out of the house now, you’re not safe. Get out of that house,’” she told the court.
According to Ms Heard, Mr Depp “heard this, turned around, came bolting down the stairs, grabbed the phone from my hand and really, really started screaming this time, laid into iO, called iO every imaginable horrible name that you can say to an LGBTQI person for one, and any person, any human being ever.”
“He just screamed at iO some really nasty stuff,” she said. “When he’s done, he says, ‘You wanna have my woman now, you wanna have my b***h, you take her, you can have her.’ With that he pulls his arm back with the phone and throws it at my face.”
Ms Heard said she felt like the phone had hit her in the eye.
“I put my head in my hands and immediately start crying. I said, ‘You hit me with the phone. Johnny, you hit me.’ I’m sitting on the couch. I didn’t even have time to react. I didn’t even have time to put my hands up,” she said.
“I was still sitting cross-legged with my socks on the couch. I haven’t seen him for a month and the last several times now that I’ve seen him he’s hit me. I didn’t even have time to react to this.”
Ms Heard said Mr Depp verbally taunted her, then whacked her on the top of her head.
“This heavy ringed hand landed on top of my skull, grabs me by the hair, yanks me up off the couch. I’m struggling to stand up,” she said.
“I don’t know if he was intending to hit me in the face or if he was just trying to grab my face but he was making this gesture around my face to try to expose my face to him and he was like, ‘Yeah, let me see how bad I hurt you. Let me see it. Let me see how bad I hurt you this time. What if I pulled your hair back? What if I pulled your hair back?’
“And he yanks my hair back. I’m trying to prevent him from landing the blows to my face and trying to prevent my face from being exposed, and I just remember this mocking taunt he was doing with me as he’s yanking me around the room.”
Ms Heard said another friend, who lived in the neighboring apartment, came in and tried to protect her. She said Mr Depp’s two security guards eventually came in too. At some point, she said Mr Depp picked up a bottle and started “smashing things off the nightstand, the coffee table,” and “screaming.”
Eventually, she said Mr Depp exited the apartment, knocking things off and breaking things along the way. She said her friend’s husband brought her to his and his wife’s apartment, where she stayed for the next few hours.
Ms Heard said about an hour after Mr Depp left, she learned the police had been called. She said she was not the one who made the call.
Asked on 16 May why she didn’t want to cooperate with the police, Ms Heard told the court: “I wanted to protect Johnny. I didn’t want him to be arrested. I didn’t want him to be in trouble. I didn’t want the world to know. I didn’t want this to come out. I didn’t want him to be in trouble. I didn’t want this to be – I wanted to protect Johnny.”
Heard says her 2018 op-ed on domestic violence is ‘not about Johnny’
Ms Heardtold the court that the 2018 op-ed at the center of thedefamation trialopposing her and Mr Depp is “not about Johnny”.Ms Heard said that the article is actually about her and what happened to her “after I escaped my marriage”.
“The only one who made it about him ironically is Johnny,” she told the court.
Heard explains photos of herself with scars on the red carpet after Depp vodka bottle fight
The courtwas shown photos of Ms Heard’s scarred arm at a 2015 red carpet event.
“Those are scars that I obtained as Johnny was strangling and assaulting me on a countertop in Australia,” Ms Heard told the court.
Other photos from a second red carpet event were shown to the court, revealing several scars on Ms Heard’s left arm as she brushes her hair from her face.
Ms Heard said that she had tried to cover the scars with makeup but they were “a bit harder to cover as they’re rather fresh”.
Heard says Depp physically attacked her over London Fields sex scene
Ms Heardalleged that Mr Depp physically attacked her over a sex scene in the movie London Fields.
“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.”
Heard denies lying about donating $7m from divorce
In a tense cross-examination on 16 May, Ms Heardpushed back against the suggestion that she liedabout making $7m in donations to two charities from her divorce payout from Mr Depp, despite damning video evidence played in court.
When the couple’s divorce settlement was reached in August 2016, Ms Heard pledged to split the entire payout equally between the ACLU and the Children’s Hospital of Los Angeles.
Terence Dougherty, the chief operating officer and general counsel of the ACLU, testified earlier at the trial that the charity had so far received less than half of the $3.5m promised.
Under questioning by Camille Vasquez, Ms Heard claimed that she had been unable to complete the payments because of the costs from her ex-husband suing her.
“I still fully intend on honoring all of my pledges,” she testified. “I would love him to stop suing me so I can.”
When Ms Heard said that she had been unable to fulfil her commitment to make the donations because her ex-husband was suing her during Monday’s testimony, Mr Depp’s attorney pushed back that 13 months passed between her receiving the full divorce settlement and the lawsuit being filed.
The court was shown a clip from Ms Heard’s appearance on Danish TV show RTL Late Night in October 2018, where she said that “$7m was donated in total”.
“I split the amount between the ACLU and CHLA. ACLU is a prominent non-profit organisation in the US and they work on the behalf of marginalised communities on the ground, and in legislative reform,” she said on the show.
“I wanted nothing.”
The final payment of $2.3m was paid on 1 February 2018, the court heard.
Ms Heard claimed that she uses the terms “pledged” and “donated” interchangeably.
Heard’s former friend shares fears of ‘monster’ Depp
Testifying for the defence on 18 May, Ms Heard’s former best friend Raquel “Rocky” Pennington broke down in tears as she described how she feared “monster” Mr Depp would “do something worse than he intended” to the Aquaman actress.
“In the beginning I wasn’t worried. Towards the end when the phsycial abuse was more evident I was worried,” she said. “I was worried for her physical safety. I was worried that when he turned he might accidentally do something that was worse than he ever intended.”
Ms Pennington said that she was afraid for Ms Heard because Mr Depp “could be very unpredictable and [Ms Heard] didn’t have a lot of self-preservation”.
Ms Pennington’s former husband Josh Drew testified after her and described Mr Depp as “screaming, cursing and spitting” at him on the last night he allegedly abused Ms Heard.
Mr Drew claimed that Mr Depp smashed a bottle against the door to his apartment and burst in, got up close in his face in an “aggressive” way and was “screaming, cursing, spitting in my face”.
While Mr Drew testified that he just “calmly” walked out of his home, he said that Mr Depp’s behaviour caused one of their other friends to “bolt” away from the Pirates star and run upstairs to “hide from him”.
Heard’s sister says Depp asked her to sign NDA after hitting her
Ms Heard’s sister Whitney Henriquez took the witness stand on 18 May and claimed that Mr Depp asked her to sign a non-disclosure agreement after he allegedly hit her during a violent attack on the Aquaman actress.
The incident, which became known as “the staircase incident”, allegedly took place in March 2015 inside the downtown Los Angeles penthouse in the Eastern Columbia Building where Ms Heard and Mr Depp lived together.
Ms Henriquez said her former brother-in-law allegedly struck her in the back, hurled a Red Bull can at a friend, grabbed Ms Heard by the hair and hit her before trashing Ms Heard’s closet.
She claimed that Mr Depp was “clearly drunk” and told her that Ms Heard had found text messages between him and a woman named “Rochelle”.
He allegedly blamed Ms Heard for cheating on her, telling Ms Henriquez that “Amber made me do it”.
Heard’s sister says Depp dangled dog out of car window
Elsewhere in her testimony, Ms Henriquez described a time Mr Depp allegedly dangled his dog out of the window of a moving car and joked about putting it in a microwave after he became angry with Ms Heard over a painting from her former partner.
“At some point I heard the back window open and Johnny is holding our dog out the window and I froze,” she said.
“I was scared because I just remember thinking I knew how inebriated he was and the dog was very small and I thought if she twitched or if lost her somehow she was just going to go out of the window.”
Ms Henriquez said Mr Depp brought the dog back into the car and was laughing about the incident.
“He was laughing – just this really scary, loud cackle,” she said.
“Then he made some joke about putting her in the microwave.”
Ms Henriquez said that the incident unfolded when Mr Depp was under the influence and accused Ms Heard of being unfaithful – firstly of having an affair with a friend she had been photographed with and secondly of rekindling a relationship with an ex because of a painting hanging on a wall.
Depp’s former agent describes ‘fundamental issues with anger’
Mr Depp’s former agent Tracey Jacobs gave testimony for the defence on 19 May, telling the court that the Pirates actor “romanticised” drugs and had “fundamental issues with anger”.
Ms Jacobs claimed that his increasingly “difficult” reputation meant people around Hollywood grew “reluctant” to work with him and his “star dimmed”.
Ms Jacobs said she was Mr Depp’s agent for 30 years of his career, helping to make him “the biggest star in the world” before they suddenly parted ways in 2016.
Over the last 10 years of working together, she testified that Mr Depp’s “unprofessional behaviour” increased because of his increased abuse of drugs and alcohol.
During that time, she testified that she noticed that Mr Depp “romanticised the entire drug culture” and had “fundamental issues with anger” which she said “worsened over time”.
Elsewhere in her testimony, Ms Jacobs claimed that Mr Depp tried to shut down Ms Heard’s movie London Fields because it contained sex scenes.
The court was shown emails sent by Mr Depp to Ms Jacobs, including one in which he wrote: “It is in Amber’s contract that there will be no nudity and her f***ing agents are weak and insipid. Will you please call these motherf***ers and you and Jake get on this immediately?”
He followed-up with another email that read: “It must be shut down or I will sue them eighteen ways from f***ing Sunday. These people are nobodies in this business and they should be made to understand that we will ruin them instantly.”
Depp’s ex Ellen Barkin recalls wine bottle incident
Actor Ellen Barkin took the stand for the defence on 19 May and claimed that “jealous” Mr Depp once threw a wine bottle across a hotel room back when they were dating in the early 1990s.
Ms Barkin said she first became friends with Mr Depp in 1994 when they starred in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas together before their relationship turned “sexual” and they would meet up a few times a week.
Ms Barkin testified that she was in a hotel room in Las Vegas with Mr Depp, his assistant and his friends one day during filming for Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.
She said that there was “a fight going on” and the actor picked up a wine bottle and threw it across the room.
The fight was not with her, she said, but between Mr Depp and “his friends in the room, the assistant, honestly I don’t remember”.
The bottle did not hit her or anyone else in the room, she testified, but it was thrown in the direction of her and the group of people in the room.
“I don’t know why he threw the bottle,” she said.
Week six
Depp said Heard was ‘begging for global humiliation’ after she filed for restraining order
In a text shared in court, Mr Depp said Ms Heard was “begging for global humiliation” after she filed for a restraining order.
The text was allegedly sent on 15 August 2016, according to court documents – a few months after Ms Heard sought a restraining order against Mr Depp in late May that same year.
“She’s begging for global humiliation… She’s gonna get it,” Mr Depp texted, according to the court exhibit.
“I have no mercy, no fear and not an ounce of emotion, or what I once thought was love, for this gold-digging, low level, dime a dozen, mushy, pointless dangling overused flappy fish market,” he added.
“I’m so f***ing happy she wants to go fight this out!!! She will hit the wall hard!!!,” Mr Depp wrote.
“I met a f***ing sublime Russian here… Which made me realize the time I blew on that 50 cent stripper… I wouldn’t touch her with a goddam glove. I can only hope that karma kicks in and takes the gift of breath from her,” he added.
Mr Depp’s lawyers later asked the actor about the text sent to talent agent Christian Carino.
“I’m in total shock that this is happening to me. That my entire life on the planet has been brought to the head of a pin,” he said. “We have a tendency, as humans, to get very, very irate and angry.”
“Suddenly I’m scum. It never had to happen. One little lie,” he added.
Depp suggests Heard attorney fabricated text messages in heated cross-examination
Mr Depp suggested that Ms Heard’s attorney had fabricated negative text messages that he allegedly sent about his ex-wife as he returned to the witness stand.
During a heated cross-examination, Heard lawyer Ben Rottenborn asked Mr Depp if he had said, “that if you want to be with a woman sexually that she is rightfully yours”.
“That’s ludicrous,” Mr Depp responded.
“You’ve also said that with respect to women you want to be with, you’ve remarked ‘I need, I want, I take,’ haven’t you?” Mr Rottenborn asked.
“Equally as ludicrous – no,” Mr Depp said.
Mr Rottenborn then asked that an exhibit be pulled up.
“You can pull what you like, I’ve never said those words. There’s not enough hubris in me to say anything like that,” Mr Depp told the lawyer.
Mr Rottenborn said the texts in the exhibit were sent from Mr Depp to film producer Stephen Deuters on 22 February 2017.
“This looks nothing like me, you might have mistaken,” Mr Depp said before adding that the texts in the exhibit might have been “screwed with”.
About some of the texts shared in court supposedly sent by Mr Depp, the actor said, “I don’t know nothing about any of these ... Honestly if someone else had borrowed my phone and made this text to Stephen, possibly ... I don’t write like that”.
Depp calls Heard’s abuse allegations ‘unimaginably brutal, cruel, and all false’
Mr Depp told the court that listening to Ms Heard’s testimony regarding alleged abuse was “unimaginably brutal” and what she said in the witness box was “all false”.
In direct examination by his own legal team, Mr Depp was asked what it has been like to hear Ms Heard’s testimony during the trial.
After a long pause, he responded: “Insane. It’s insane to hear heinous accusations of violence, sexual violence that she has attributed to me, that she’s accused me of. I don’t think anyone enjoys having to split themselves open and tell the truth, but there are times when one simply has to because it’s just got out of control.”
He adds: “It’s horrible, ridiculous, ludicrous, painful, savage. Unimaginably brutal, cruel, and all false. All false.”
Expanding on how it felt to hear Ms Heard’s graphic testimony against him, including descriptions of extensive drug and alcohol use, and allegations of sexual, physical, and mental abuse, Mr Depp said: “No human being is perfect, certainly not. But I have never in my life committed sexual battery, physical abuse, all these outlandish, outrageous stories of me committing these things... and living with it for six years, and waiting to bring the truth out.”
Mr Depp concluded: “This is not easy for any of us, I know that. But no matter what happens, I did get here, I did tell the truth and I have spoken up for what I have been carrying on my back, reluctantly for six years.”
Depp chuckles as he says he ‘misses’ the tip of his finger that was severed in fight with Heard
Mr Depp chuckled after joking that he “misses” the top of his finger that was severed during a fight with Ms Heard.
He was asked by his own counsel to recount the incident that occurred in Australia in March 2015.
Text messages sent by Mr Depp to his personal physician Dr David Kipper after the incident took place were presented to the court, with one that read: “I cut the top of my middle finger off...What should I do!?”
After which, Mr Depp was asked what he told the doctor about how his finger became injured.
“I told him that there was obviously, I mean when you saw the damage in the house and the blood everywhere, I mean obviously there’s serious damage done,” he began.
“There would be no point in lying to the man, he’d been through it with me and Ms Heard before.”
“I told him she had thrown a bottle of vodka and smashed my, smashed and cut my finger off,” he said, before quickly correcting that it was just “the tip” of his finger.
“A good chunk. I miss it,” he joked while chuckling.
Depp denies involvement in Waldman statements calling Heard abuse claims a ‘hoax’
Mr Depp was questioned about his former attorney Adam Waldman. Mr Waldman’s statements – calling Ms Heard’s allegations of domestic abuse against Mr Depp a “hoax” and an “ambush” – are at the centre of Ms Heard’s $100m countersuit against Mr Depp.
She claims Mr Depp defamed her in multiple statements to the press via Waldman after she published the 2018 The Washington Post op-ed, in which Mr Depp claims she allegedly implied he abused her.
When asked whether he recognised which publication Mr Waldman’s statements were published in, he replied: “It just seemed like a lot of word salad to me. I didn’t know where they ended up, or...”
He said the first time he saw the statements was in the countersuit.
At the start of Tuesday’s proceedings, Mr Depp’s legal team asked Judge Azcarate to throw out the countersuit, arguing that Ms Heard should be suing Mr Waldman himself instead of Mr Depp.
Judge Azcarate rejected the request, saying there is enough evidence to suggest Mr Waldman made the statements on behalf of Mr Depp and that a jury should be allowed to hear the case.
The first allegedly defamatory statement cited in Ms Heard’s counterclaim was made in April 2019, when Mr Waldman accused her of committing “defamation, perjury and filing and receiving a fraudulent temporary restraining order demand with the court”.
In June 2019, Mr Waldman told the Blast: “Ms Heard continues to defraud her abused hoax victim Mr Depp, the #metoo movement she masquerades as the leader of, and other real abuse victims worldwide,” the countersuit states.
The following month, Mr Waldman is quoted as telling the Blast that Ms Heard “went to court with painted on ‘bruises’ to obtain a temporary restraining order” and telling People her “battered face” was a “hoax”.
The countersuit then cites several statements Mr Waldman made to Daily Mail in April and June of 2020.
“Amber Heard and her friends in the media used fake sexual violence allegations as both sword and shield, depending on their needs. They have selected some of her sexual violence hoax ‘facts’ as the sword, inflicting them on the public and Mr Depp,” he said in one article.
In another article, he told the outlet: “Quite simply this was an ambush, a hoax. They set Mr Depp up by calling the cops but the first attempt didn’t do the trick. The officers came to the penthouses, thoroughly searched and interviewed, and left after seeing no damage to face or property. So Amber and her friends spilled a little wine and roughed the place up, got their stories straight under the direction of a lawyer and publicist, and then placed a second call to 911.”
Ms Heard’s suit contends that Mr Waldman made the statements at Mr Depp’s direction, and thus the actor should be held liable.
Psychologist hired by Depp discredits Heard’s PTSD diagnosis saying symptoms are ‘frequently feigned’
The psychologist hired by Mr Depp’s legal team, Dr Shannon Curry, returned to the stand to refute Ms Heard’s diagnosis of post-traumatic stress disorder.
Testifying for Ms Heard’s defence on 3 May, clinical psychologist Dr Dawn Hughes said that the actress does suffer from PTSD stemming from domestic violence.
“I diagnosed Ms Heard with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder… and the cause was the intimate partner violence by Mr Depp,” Dr Hughes said at the time.
On Wednesday, Dr Curry was called to the stand by Mr Depp’s team and said her testimony “will be used to rebut” Dr Hughes’ evidence in the multi-million dollar defamation trial brought by Mr Depp against ex-wife Ms Heard.
“Generally speaking, there are three main categories I’d like to talk about today,” Dr Curry began. “The first is that Dr Hughes misrepresented the tests and the results she utilised in the evaluations. She misrepresented my testing and the results I obtained in my evaluation. And she provided testimony in a manner that presented her own opinions and the self-report of Ms Heard as facts.”
Kate Moss denies Heard claim Depp pushed her down the stairs at trial
Kate Moss denied Ms Heard’s claim that Mr Depp pushed her down the stairs during their relationship in the 1990s as she took the stand in the couple’s defamation trial.
Ms Moss testified for only a few minutes on Wednesday via video link, saying that she did fall down a set of stairs while the couple were on holiday in Jamaica and that Mr Depp helped her up and cared for her at the time.
“We were leaving the room, Johnny left before I did, and there had been a rain storm,” she said. “As I left the room, I slid down the stairs and I hurt my back.
“I screamed because I didn’t know what had happened to me and I was in pain. He came running back to help me and carried me back to my room, and got me medical attention.”
Asked about the relationship as a whole, which lasted from 1994 until 1998, Ms Moss said: “He never pushed me, kicked me, or threw me down any stairs.”
Heard and Jason Momoa ‘didn’t have a lot of chemistry’ in Aquaman, Warner Bros executive says
A Warner Bros executive has testified that Ms Heard and Jason Momoa’s lack of chemistry was the reason she was the subject of a recasting discussion for Aquaman 2.
Mr Depp’s team began its rebuttal argumenton Tuesday (24 May) with a video deposition from Walter Hamada, who is in charge of DC-based films.
In Mr Hamada’s deposition, he confirmed that Ms Heard did have an option contract with Warner Bros to play the role of Mera in the Aquaman franchise.
According to Mr Hamada, Ms Heard’s role was never reduced in the forthcoming sequel, instead, Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom was always intended to focus on the titular character and his friend, with Heard’s character secondary.
He said Ms Heard’s involvement in the film was not impacted by anything said by Mr Depp or his lawyer Adam Waldman.
Further, he explained that there had been a delay in casting due to ongoing discussions of recasting the role of Mera, as there were concerns of chemistry issues between Aquaman’s Jason Momoa and Ms Heard.
“They didn’t really have a lot of chemistry together,” Mr Hamada said. “The reality is, it’s not uncommon on movies for two leads to not have chemistry.”
He added that chemistry can be fabricated through “movie magic and editorial” and a “great score”.
“If you watch the movie, they look like they had great chemistry. I just know that through the course of the post-production it took a lot of effort to get there,” he said.
Heard’s sister is ‘very wrong’ to support claims against Depp, ex-friend says
Ms Heard’s sister is “doing something very wrong” by supporting her allegations of abuse against Mr Depp, according to a former friend.
Jennifer Howell, CEO and founder of the nonprofit The Art of Elysium, told the court that she “loved” Ms Heard’s sister Whitney Henriquez but believes she is “trying to protect her sister”.
Ms Howell, who used to be Ms Henriquez’s boss and friend, said she sent an email to her in July 2020 urging her to “tell the truth”.
“I struggled very much with what to do in a situation that I loved someone who I know is doing something very wrong and I know that they’re doing it because they’re trying to protect their sister and I’m trying to protect her,” she testified about the email.
“And I’m just trying to get her to wake up and do the right thing which is tell the truth. That’s the only thing that can help everyone involved in this thing.”
Court erupts in laughter as witness says he’s not a Depp fan
Mr Depp’s witness admitted that he was not a fan of the actor, causing the courtroom to fill with laughter.
Morgan Night took the stand on Tuesday (24 May). Mr Night worked at the Hicksville trailer park in Joshua Tree National Park, California that Ms Heard, Mr Depp and friends visited in May 2013. During that trip, Ms Heard alleges that Mr Depp trashed their trailer before performing a “cavity search” on her.
While Heard’s lawyer Elaine Bredehoft cross-examined the witness, she accused him of being a big fan of Mr Depp and wanting to be a part of the trial.
“Mr Night, you are a pretty big fan of Johnny Depp, aren’t you?” Ms Bredehoft questioned.
“I am not, to be honest,” he responded, which was met with laughter from the court.
Before Mr Night took the stand, Judge Azcarate sent out the jury so he could be questioned about what he’d seen of the trial before he learned he would be a witness.
Mr Night explained that approximately five weeks ago, a friend of his texted that Hicksville was mentioned in court and he watched a short clip online.
He was contacted by Mr Depp’s attorneys and said that the description of the evening at the Hicksville trailer park that was mentioned, was not how he recalled the incident and that the night was not particularly remarkable.
Mr Night said that he searched Twitter for mentions and replied to a tweet about what happened around the fire pit.
“That never happened. I was with them all night. Amber was the one acting all jealous and crazy,” his reply read.
Depp lawyer pushes back on expert’s comparison of Heard to Jason Momoa, Gal Gadot and Zendaya
Mr Depp’s lawyer pushed back on an expert’s assessment of Ms Heard’s career and comparison to actors like Jason Momoa, Zendaya and Gal Gadot.
Entertainment consultant Kathryn Arnold said Ms Heard might be enjoying the same career success as Gadot, Momoa and Zendaya if not for team Depp’s alleged “smear campaign” against her.
“When you look at the time frame of when the Waldman statements came out [in 2020], and you look at what was going on with Ms Heard’s career prior to the statement and what happened after the statement, it’s very clear to make that correlation,” Ms Arnold testified in court on Monday 23 May.
“It would have been very reasonable to believe her career would have been on an upward trajectory of those other actors if not for the hoax allegations.”
Adam Waldman accused Heard of orchestrating an “abuse hoax” in an interview with the Daily Mail in 2020.
Ms Arnold added that Ms Heard’s career was “following a very nice steady rise and was on the precipice of a meteoric rise with Aquaman and Aquaman 2, prior to the [defamatory] statements”.
During cross-questioning, Mr Depp’s lawyers pushed back on Ms Arnold’s comparison.
The Pirates of the Caribbean star’s team claimed that Ms Arnold’s comparison of Ms Heard to the aforementioned actors was way off the mark, as all of them were either signed up to blockbuster franchises or had higher profile careers than Ms Heard back in 2020.
Depp mouths ‘wow’ as Heard team questions officer about her 2009 domestic violence arrest
Mr Depp mouthed the word “wow” during the cross-examination of airport security worker who testified to a 2009 domestic violence “altercation” involving Ms Heard.
Testifying as a witness for Mr Depp, Beverly Leonard told the court that she met the Aquaman actor at the Seattle-Tacoma International Airport in Washington state during her time working there.
Ms Leonard said she was in the baggage claim area when she “observed [Heard] with a travelling companion” and that “they got into an altercation where Ms Heard had grabbed her travelling companion and pulled something from her neck.”
At that point, Ms Leonard continued, she went over “to try to break up what appeared to be a fight”, asked a colleague to help her and “stepped in between them, and separated them, stopping any further injuries or escalation.”
She described Ms Heard’s behaviour towards her fellow traveller, who was the actor’s former partner Tasya Van Ree, as “aggressive”. She also said Ms Heard had “pulled a necklace off of her, and I observed her having it in her hand.”
Ms Heard seemed to “not be very steady on her feet” and her eyes were “blurry and watery”, Ms Leonard gave testimony, adding, “I could smell alcohol”.
Ms Leonard also told the jury that Ms Heard’s co-traveller “raised her hands in what appeared to be a defensive manner” but remained “pretty stoic” other than that. She also said Ms Heard was dismissive of her when she intervened to ask if “they were okay” and “what’s going on”.
“She just said, ‘We’re just having an argument, we’re fine, we’re fine,’” Ms Leonard explained, adding that Ms Heard’s travelling companion had an “abraision on the side of her neck where the necklace was, like a rope burn from the chain as it was removed.”
During Ms Leonard’s cross-examination, Ms Bredehoft suggested that the witness had reached out to Mr Depp’s legal counsel “late last night” so that “you can get on TV”.
“You know that this trial is being televised right?” Ms Heard’s lawyer asked Ms Leonard, who replied: “Yes.”
“So you know that if you have something that might be significant to say, that that way you can get on TV right?” Ms Bredehoft pressed.
“No, I had no desire to be on television,” Ms Leonard replied, as Mr Depp mouthed “wow” over Ms Bredehoft’s line of questioning.
“I actually waited for a call and wondered why I hadn’t been contacted,” she added.
Depp’s career was damaged more by his own lawsuits than Heard’s op-ed, expert says
Mr Depp’s career has been damaged more by his own lawsuits than Ms Heard’s op-ed, an expert has said.
On Monday (23 May), entertainment consultant Kathryn Arnold said Depp’s 2020 lawsuit against The Sun was “a really tough one” on his career.
Mr Depp lost his libel battle against the publisher of The Sun newspaper over an article that claimed he was a “wife beater”. The judge reached the conclusion that the claim was “substantially true”.
Speaking on the 20th day of the new lawsuit, Ms Arnold said of the 2020 trial: “Every allegation of abuse, every text, every email, all the audio and visual stuff was brought to light and made public. The industry was watching closely and it’s hard for studios, especially one like Disney, to be connected to a star that has texts about burnt corpses and violent behaviour.”
She added: “Every time Mr Depp brings a lawsuit, because he’s such a well-known public figure, the spotlight goes on him, whether it’s against his business manager or his former lawyer, even when he filed his talent agent, it becomes news…
“Then they look at the details. The erratic behaviour, the financial issues, the drinking and drug abuse was part and parcel of every one of those, and it was all brought to light yet again each time.”
When asked what impact Ms Heard’s op-ed had on Mr Depp’s claim he lost earnings for Pirates of the Caribbean 6, Ms Arnold said: “Zero. The movie doesn’t exist yet so that’s one reason, but as important is the fact that Disney, in their file for this trial, did not have the op-ed… the conversations of Depp not being in franchise going forward were discussions before the op-ed even came out.”
On what impact the op-ed has had on Mr Depp’s career, she said: “Very little. Hardly anybody even knew the op-ed existed before he filed the suit, if anybody who I knew, but certainly not Disney.”
Depp shows behaviour ‘consistent with a perpetrator of intimate partner violence’, psychiatrist says
Mr Depp has exhibited behaviours that are “consistent” with someone who is a “perpetrator of intimate partner violence”, a psychiatrist called by the Ms Heard defence team has testified.
Dr David Spiegel took the stand in the couple’s defamation trial on Monday and offered damning testimony about Mr Depp’s mental state.
Perhaps the most harsh moment came when he told jurors: “Mr Depp has behaviours that are consistent with someone that both has substance use disorder as well as behaviours of someone who is a perpetrator of intimate partner violence.”
Dr Spiegel acknowledged that he did not interview Mr Depp directly, because his two requests to do so were denied by the actor’s lawyers.
Instead, he drew conclusions after reviewing Mr Depp’s depositions and other materials in the case, saying he saw many signs of impairment from excessive use of drugs and alcohol.
Asked if he believes Mr Depp’s substance abuse impaired his ability to perform as an actor, Dr Spiegel said he is aware of Mr Depp using an earpiece for lines and saying that he did a movie “entirely wasted”.
He said he believes Mr Depp’s “thinking rate” is down and his attention and memory are impaired, noting that drugs and alcohol “will make us disinhibited and will make us act out, in a lot of different ways”, including “intimate partner violence”.
“We all get angry with people ... But when our brain is functioning well, we don’t act it out,” he said.
“When we have the effects of alcohol, we have disinhibition ... so we can no longer interpret what’s in front of you, what’s right and wrong, what we should act on and what we shouldn’t act on.”
Mr Spiegel described combining substance abuse with intimate partner violence as “playing with fire”.
Depp’s account of severed finger fight with Heard is ‘inconsistent’ with injury, surgeon says
Mr Depp’s account of a fight with Ms Heard during which his finger was severed has been disputed by an expert witness.
Dr Richard Moore, an orthopaedic surgeon from Wilmington, North Carolina told the court on Monday that Mr Depp’s account of the fight in which he says his finger was cut off when Ms Heard threw a vodka bottle at him is “not consistent with what we see in the described injury pattern or the clinical photographs”.
The disputed fight took place in Australia in March 2015. Dr Moore, a hand surgery specialist, was asked by Ms Heard’s legal team if the finger injury “occurred as a result of a vodka bottle being thrown at him?”
He said he couldn’t see any evidence of damage to the fingernail that he would expect from an injury when the finger was struck by a bottle from above.
While Mr Depp claims that his finger was severed by a vodka bottle thrown by Ms Heard, she has testified that he was injured when he smashed a phone against a wall.
Depp lawyer Camille Vasquez noted that Mr Depp testified that his finger was wrapped around the bar and that the bottle struck him at an angle, not directly from above.
Dr Moore said in his written testimony that “I cannot rule anything out completely ... I can’t rule out that the injury was caused by a car door ... I can’t definitively say what caused the injury”.
Heard spars with Depp attorney when grilled about Kate Moss and other witnesses supporting him
Ms Heard sparred with one of Mr Depp’s attorneys as she was grilled about Kate Moss and other witnesses supporting him.
Ms Heard appeared distressed as she took the stand once again. Depp lawyer Camille Vasquez said Ms Heard’s “lies have been exposed to the world multiple times, right?”
“I haven’t lied about anything I’ve been here to say,” Ms Heard replied.
Ms Vasquez asked about Ms Heard’s allegation that Mr Depp was violent in Hicksville in 2013, noting that Ms Heard’s witness Rocky Pennington, a previously close friend, didn’t support her claim that Mr Depp grew jealous and grabbed a woman by the wrist.
The manager of the trailer park where they were staying at the time appeared in court on Monday. Ms Heard said she didn’t recognise the witness, claiming that he “wasn’t there” and that he wouldn’t know what took place in private. Ms Heard denied that she was the one who was jealous.
Ms Vasquez said that Ms Heard has claimed that she had “no idea” that the press would be outside the court when she sought a restraining order against Mr Depp in May 2016.
“I said I did not have anything to do with it,” Ms Heard responded.
Ms Vasquez said Ms Heard wasn’t “shocked at all” when she met photographers when she left the courthouse because she was aware that they would be present.
Ms Heard rejected the allegation that she made entertainment site TMZ aware that she would be at the courthouse.
She was then asked about testimony from a former TMZ staffer who said on Wednesday that they had received a tip from a verified source. When it was suggested that it came from her team, Ms Heard pushed back.
“Absolutely not. Why would I want that? What survivor of domestic violence wants that?” she said.
Ms Vasquez asked Ms Heard about a 2015 incident in which she said she punched Mr Depp in defence of her sister while thinking of him pushing his former partner Kate Moss down a set of stairs.
“You didn’t expect Ms Moss to agree to testify that that never happened, did you?” Ms Vasquez asked.
“Incorrect,” Ms Heard replied. “I know how many people would come out of the woodwork to be in support of Johnny.”
“So you’re saying Ms Moss needs to ‘come out of the woodwork’ to testify for Mr Depp?” Ms Vasquez asked.
Ms Heard said everyone who was “around in the ‘90s and ‘00s” had heard the same rumour concerning Ms Moss and Mr Depp.
“Of course that’s what flashed through my head when my violent husband not only swung for me but also swung for my sister,” Ms Heard said.
She added that Ms Moss’ testimony in support of Mr Depp “doesn’t change what I believed at the time when we were on the stairs and I thought he was going to kill my sister”.
Heard begs Depp ‘leave me alone’ claiming daily death threats over trial
Asked how she’s been affected by the Depp-Waldman statements at the centre of her counterclaim, Ms Heard on Thursday (26 May) said: “I am harassed, humiliated, threatened, every single day. Even just walking into this court room, sitting here in front of the world, having the worst parts of my life, things that I’ve lived through, used to humiliate me.
“People want to kill me, and they tell me so everyday. People want to put my baby in the microwave, and they tell me that,” she continued, adding, “Johnny threatened, promised, promised me, that if I ever left him, he’d make me think of him every single day,” she added before being interrupted by a “non-responsive” objection from Depp’s team.
When Ms Heard’s lawyer asked her how Mr Depp’s alleged threats “continue to manifest themselves today”, she responded: In the harassment, in the humiliation, in the campaign against me that’s echoed every single day on social media, and now, in front of cameras in this room. Every single day I have to relive the trauma. My hands shake, I wake up screaming. I have to live with the trauma and damage done to me.”
“My friends have to live with a set of unspoken rules about how to not scare me... how to not touch me, not to surprise me. My intimate partners have rules about how they can deal with me, how they can touch me. I have rules for doctors and medical professionals I see, gynaecologists I see.
“I live my life with these sets of rules that I have to follow, my friends have to follow, for me not to have a panic attack or triggering event,” the Aquaman actor told the jury.
She testified that “the damage that I have to live with every single day” impacted her ability to train for combat scenes in the DC movie, also starring Jason Momoa.
“If a combat scene, and a trigger happens, I have a meltdown and I have to deal with that, the crew would have to deal with that because of the damage I walk around with, every day,” she continued.
“I’m not sitting in this courtroom, laughing, making snide jokes. This is horrible, this is painful, and this is humiliating for any human being to go through,” Ms Heard said, adding that she “doesn’t deserve this”.
Former TMZ employee snaps back after Heard lawyer suggests he’s testifying for Depp for fame
A former TMZ employee testifying for Mr Depp offered a scathing response when her lawyer suggested he was looking for his “15 minutes of fame”.
Morgan Tremaine appeared as a witness for the Pirates of the Caribbean actor on Wednesday. When Ms Heard’s lawyer Elaine Bredehoft suggested Mr Tremaine would get his “15 minutes of fame” by participating in the televised trial, he replied: “I could say the same thing about taking Amber Heard as a client, for you.”
“I stand to gain nothing from this. I’m actually putting myself kind of in the target of TMZ, a very litigious organisation, and I’m not seeking any 15 minutes here,” he also said.
Formerly employed as a field assignment manager at TMZ, Mr Tremaine testified on Wednesday that he dispatched photographers to the Los Angeles courthouse where Ms Heard was awarded a restraining order against Mr Depp in May 2016.
Mr Tremaine said TMZ had been tipped off about Ms Heard’s appearance at the courthouse, but did not reveal who the source of the verified tip was.
“The objective was to capture her leaving the courthouse and she was going to stop and turn to the camera and display the bruise,” Mr Tremaine told the jury.
On 27 May 2016, the celebrity news website ran an exclusive story titled: “AMBER HEARD CLAIMS DOMESTIC VIOLENCE Gets Restraining Order Against Johnny Depp”. The news story was accompanied by a picture of Heard’s bruised eye.
During his testimony, Mr Tremaine said it was very rare for paparazzi to be dispatched to a court unless they’d received a tip.
He also testified to TMZ photographers being sent to a law office where Ms Heard was giving a deposition, on 6 August 2016. Once again, he stated that recording at such a location was not common.
Mr Tremaine also described the circumstances under which a video of Mr Depp slamming cupboard doors and throwing a wine bottle was leaked to the outlet. He said it was published on TMZ about 15 minutes after he received it, explaining that copyrighting a video can take weeks if the identity of the owner is unclear, but a matter of minutes if it comes straight from a known source.
Depp’s closing argument
In their closing argument on 27 May, Mr Depp’s lawyers told jurors that Ms Heard was the “abuser” and he was the “abused” during their tumultuous relationship.
“There is an abuser in this courtroom but it is not Mr Depp,” said attorney Camille Vasquez.
“And there is a victim of domestic abuse in this courtroom but it is not Ms Heard.”
Ms Vasquez said that Mr Depp suffered “persistent verbal, physical and emotional abuse” at the hands of Ms Heard and that, after the relationship ended, she continued the abuse by “falsely” accusing him of domestic abuse.
“What is at stake in this trial is a man’s good name. Even more than that what is at stake in this trial is a man’s life,” she said.
“The life that he lost when he was accused of a heinous crime and the life he could live when he is finally vindicated.”
Heard’s closing argument
In the closing argument for Ms Heard, attorney Benjamin Rottenborn accused Mr Depp of carrying out a “campaign of global humiliation” against Ms Heard that sends a “message” to survivors of domestic abuse everywhere that they will not be believed.
“In trying to convince you that Mr Depp has carried his burden of proof in proving that he was never abusive to Amber on even one occasion, think about the message that Mr Depp and his attorneys are sending to Amber and by extension to every victim of domestic abuse everywhere,” he said.
“If you didn’t take the picture it didn’t happen. If you did take pictures they’re fake... That is the message that Mr Depp is asking you to send.”
He accused Mr Depp’s team of “victim blaming” and told jurors that Mr Depp’s case had fallen apart because he has not proven that he never abused his ex-wife even “just one time”.
Week seven
Jury returns the verdict
Jurors deliberated for just under 13 hours before returning their verdict on 1 June.
They ruled in favour of Mr Depp and ordered Ms Heard to pay him $10m in compensatory damages and $5m in punitive damages.
Ms Heard won a single part out of three listed in her counterclaim and Mr Depp was in turn ordered to pay her $2m.
Mr Depp’s legal team was seen celebrating the verdict as Ms Heard looked down at her desk.
