Actor Amber Heard's Washington Post opinion piece is still available to read on the newspaper's website.
This article contains disturbing content.
It's titled I spoke up against sexual violence — and faced our culture's wrath. That has to change.
It's this piece, in which she doesn't directly name actor Johnny Depp, that has led to a celebrity court case in which shocking and lurid details have been aired about the former couple.
Mr Depp is suing Ms Heard for libel over the 2018 op-ed.
He wants $US50 million ($69 million), saying the opinion piece defamed him, damaging his movie career and reputation.
The Washington Post isn't a defendant.
Ms Heard is countersuing, bringing her own libel claim saying Mr Depp has smeared her by calling her a liar. She's seeking damages of $US100 million ($138 million).
Mr Depp has already lost one libel case against British tabloid The Sun for labelling him a "wife-beater", with a London High Court judge ruling he had repeatedly assaulted Ms Heard and put her in fear for her life.
He has spent four days on the stand at the Fairfax County Courthouse in Virginia and has now concluded his testimony, during which he stated he was the one who was a victim of domestic violence in their relationship, and not Ms Heard.
Admitted into evidence so far in the trial has been a series of text messages as well as sound recordings of the pair, who met on the set of The Rum Diary in 2011 and married four years later.
Why do recordings of Johnny Depp and Amber Heard's most private moments exist?
The court was played a recording in which both Mr Depp and Ms Heard acknowledge they are on tape – suggesting the couple had come to an agreement to record each other during their marriage.
In one recording played to the court during the trial, Ms Heard and Mr Depp argue about an earlier encounter.
"I was upset and there was a lot going on and I was on an Ambien," Ms Heard said in an excerpt played to the court.
"Why are you obsessing over the fact I can't remember it the way you remembered it? I said I was sorry. I didn't deny it."
The court was played a few more excerpts from the conversation in which Ms Heard dismissively admits to throwing pots and pans and also starting a physical fight with Mr Depp.
"I'm sorry that I didn't … hit you across the face in a proper slap, but I was hitting you, it was not punching you," Ms Heard says on tape.
"Babe, you're not punched."
Mr Depp tells her she had a closed fist.
"You didn't get punched. You got hit. I'm sorry I hit you like this. But I did not punch you. I did not f****** deck you. I f****** was hitting you," Ms Heard said.
"I don't know what the motion of my actual hand was, but you're fine, I did not hurt you, I did not punch you, I was hitting you."
She then goes on to call him a baby and tells him to grow up, sarcastically calling him "admirable" for leaving the room during the fight.
Mr Depp indicated that these recordings were emblematic of their relationship saying he got used to the squabbling.
Text messages further highlight a toxic and turbulent relationship
During the trial, Mr Depp spoke about losing the tip of his finger in 2015 after Ms Heard threw a bottle at him while the couple were in Australia while Mr Depp was filming Pirates of the Caribbean 5.
But in a text message sent to his doctor David Kipper, Mr Depp offers a counter scenario.
March 7, 2015
Johnny Depp: I'm so very sad…. I cut the top of my middle finger off… What should I do?? Except, of course, go to a hospital…I'm so embarrassed for jumping into anything with her … F*** THE WORLD!!!
When the text message was read out in court, Mr Depp denied he had injured himself.
"It's just the way it was worded," Mr Depp said.
"It doesn't mean that I actually, literally cut my finger off after, at the age of 12, finding the only thing that gave me peace which is playing the guitar.
"Very unlikely.
"Why didn't I start lopping off digits when I was 13 then?"
In a recording about the incident, Ms Heard mocks her then-husband.
"Tell the world Johnny," she said.
"Tell them, Johnny Depp, I, Johnny Depp, a man, I'm a victim too of domestic violence."
It was reported at the time that Mr Depp flew back to America in March 2015 for surgery on an injured hand and returned in late April.
Shortly after the return of the couple, the then-agriculture minister Barnaby Joyce threatened to put down the couple's dogs Pistol and Boo after they were smuggled into the country.
Mr Depp had also exchanged text messages with his friend actor Paul Bettany which were admitted in court. These messages were sent while Mr Depp and Ms Heard were in a relationship, but it was prior to their marriage, and read in part.
June 11, 2013
Johnny Depp: "Let's burn Amber!!!"
Paul Bettany: "Having thought it through I don't think we should burn Amber …"
Johnny Depp: "Let's drown her before we burn her!!! I will f*** her burnt corpse afterwards to make sure she's dead."
There were also text messages that called into question Mr Depp's claim that he wasn't under the influence at a time he claimed he was sober.
May 30, 2014
Johnny Depp (to Paul Bettany): "I'm gonna properly stop the booze thing, darling… Drank all night before I picked Amber up to fly to LA this past Sunday… Ugly mate.. No food for days… Powders… Half a bottle of Whiskey… a thousand red bull and vodkas, pills, two bottles of Champers on plane and what do you get? An angry, aggro injun in a f****** blackout, screaming obscenities and insulting any f*** who got near… I'm done. I'm admittedly too f***** in the head to spray my rage at the one I love… For little reason, as well I'm too old to be that guy, but pills are fine!!!"
The case continues with Ms Heard expected to also take the stand.
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