Johnny Depp, testified in court that he never really harmed his ex-wife Amber Heard with a case value totaling $50 million ($38 million).
The lawsuit is over an opinion piece Ms Heard wrote for the Washington Post in which she termed herself a victim of domestic violence. He denies any abuse. Ms Heard has sued back, bearing a $100 million counterclaim against Mr Depp. The closely watched civil suit, which is taking place in Virginia, is now in the second of its two weeks. Ms Heard’s team depicts Mr Depp as an abusive partner.
Mr Depp’s team has presented Ms Heard’s accusations of assault as a “hoax” and a calculated strategy to discredit his reputation. Speaking to the jury on Tuesday, Mr Depp said the truth was all that mattered to him now. “I have never struck Ms Heard in this way, nor have I assaulted any woman in my life,” he said, explaining that “her accusations began to warrant attention in the industry”.
“It’s been six years of trying times – so strange when one day you’re Cinderella, so to speak, and then in 0.6 seconds, you’re Quasimodo,” he said, describing how people’s attitudes towards him changed after Ms Heard’s op-ed was published.
The trial has focused so far on Mr Depp’s behaviour and whether he was ever verbally or physically abusive towards his ex-wife. Lawyers for Mr Depp have accused his ex-wife, an actress, of giving a “performance of a lifetime” with her descriptions of alleged abuse.
Mr Depp began his testimony saying that Ms Heard’s claims are “not based in any species of the truth”.
His lawyer went on to ask him to describe his childhood in Kentucky, and the abuse that he suffered from his mother.
“I could see when she [his mother] was about to head into a situation where she was going to get riled up and someone was going to get it. And generally it was me,” he said.
The jury has heard the evidence from the former therapist of celebrities’ former therapist, who explained the entanglement between Mr and Mrs Heard as “mutual abuse”, as well as from medical workers who treated Mr Depp as he was detoxing himself from opioids. On Monday, a nurse who was hired to treat Mr Depp’s drug addiction and attended the wedding party documented that Ms Heard was “physically present” during this time when she inflicted injuries upon Mr Depp.
He would often pick fights with her as she travelled alongside Mr Depp, the nurse Debbie Lloyd said.
Ms Heard watched as Mr Depp testified to the court
Inside this Battle between Amber and johnny:
The London sound engineer who worked most extensively on Johnny Depp’s movies for many decades this week testified that during his long career he had never seen the actor physically or verbally assault his own children or their mother. Keenan Wyatt, who plays in Depp’s films, told how the actor wears a headset during filming so he can play music and receive lines.
The trial is expected to last at least six weeks.
Ahead of the case, Ms Heard wrote on social media that she never identified Mr Depp by name in her 2018 op-ed.
“Rather, I wrote about the price women pay for speaking against men in power,” she said.
“I continue to pay that price, but hopefully when this case concludes, I can move on and so can Johnny”.
