Amber Heard Recounts Unraveling of Marriage to Johnny Depp

Amber Heard testified on Monday in the defamation case introduced by her ex-husband, Johnny Depp, that she filed for divorce and for a restraining order towards him in 2016 after two blowout fights that made her concern for her security.

“I knew I needed to depart him,” Ms. Heard testified. “I knew I wouldn’t survive it if I didn’t.”

However after detailing the collapse of their marriage for a number of hours, Ms. Heard confronted aggressive cross-examination from a lawyer for Mr. Depp, Camille Vasquez, who sought to discredit her account that the actor had overwhelmed her repeatedly all through their relationship.

Citing incidents throughout which Ms. Heard testified that she had been struck, Mr. Depp’s attorneys displayed images taken on the time that present no obvious bruising or swelling. Ms. Heard testified that she lined the accidents with make-up so the abuse would stay hidden after most of the incidents.

“You must see what it appeared like beneath the make-up,” Ms. Heard stated of 1 picture she described as being taken the night time after Mr. Depp hit her so arduous that she thought her nostril had been damaged.

Because the trial at Fairfax County Circuit Court docket in Virginia entered its ultimate two weeks, Ms. Heard spent the opening hours of the day ending her testimony earlier than dealing with off with Mr. Depp’s authorized group, who questioned whether or not her accounts of spousal abuse have been correct and whether or not she had really donated the cash she secured via her divorce to charity, as she had pledged.

Her testimony included her account of the primary time the difficulty of spousal abuse by Mr. Depp got here into public view, in Might 2016, after paparazzi photographed Ms. Heard at a California court docket, the place she obtained a brief restraining order towards him. She had what seemed to be a bruise underneath one eye, and he or she instructed the court docket then, in a submitting, that Mr. Depp had hurled a cellphone at her throughout an argument a few week earlier, hitting her within the face.

“The violence was now regular and never the exception,” Ms. Heard instructed the jury on Monday.

Mr. Depp, 58, sued Ms. Heard, 36, for defamation after The Washington Put up printed an oped by Ms. Heard in 2018 by which she referred to as herself a “public determine representing home abuse.” The article didn’t point out Mr. Depp by identify, however he has asserted that it clearly alluded to their relationship. The jury can be contemplating a countersuit filed by Ms. Heard, which accuses Mr. Depp of defaming her when his former lawyer made statements saying her accusations have been a hoax.

Along with repeated bodily abuse, Ms. Heard has described a number of cases of sexual assault by Mr. Depp. He has accused her of being the aggressor within the relationship and denied ever hitting or sexually assaulting her.

Ms. Heard testified on Monday about one confrontation that occurred after Mr. Depp missed her birthday dinner in April 2016 as a result of he had a enterprise assembly. Once they have been alone later that night time, he initiated a bodily battle, she stated, and shoved her, grabbed her by the hair and threw a bottle of champagne at her, lacking her.

Ms. Heard stated she didn’t see her then-husband for a few month after that. However in Might 2016, when Mr. Depp visited the penthouse in Los Angeles the place Ms. Heard was staying, the couple ended up arguing about Mr. Depp’s accusation that she or a buddy had defecated within the couple’s mattress as a “prank.” Ms. Heard referred to as the accusation a “delusion,” attributing the feces to one of many couple’s canines.

Throughout the confrontation, Ms. Heard stated, she was on the cellphone with a buddy, who, overhearing the commotion and screaming, warned Ms. Heard that she wasn’t secure. That prompted Mr. Depp, she stated, to seize the cellphone from her.

“He pulls his arm again with the cellphone and throws it at my face,” she stated. “I put my head in my arms and instantly begin crying.”

In accordance with court docket papers, the buddy on the cellphone referred to as 911, however when the police arrived, Ms. Heard refused to cooperate.

“I wished to guard Johnny,” she testified on Monday. “I didn’t need him to be arrested.”

However two days later, she stated, she filed for divorce, and a number of other days after that, she filed for the restraining order as a result of she was experiencing excessive anxiousness and wished an assurance that Mr. Depp wouldn’t return to the place she lived. (She agreed to drop a request for a everlasting restraining order as a part of their divorce settlement.)

Mr. Depp’s account of these two incidents was markedly totally different throughout his testimony earlier within the trial. He stated he had an essential assembly about his funds and was late for Ms. Heard’s celebration, prompting her to lash out at him later that night time. He testified that she punched him within the face twice earlier than he left the constructing and stayed elsewhere. His mom died whereas the couple was separated, and when he referred to as Ms. Heard to inform her the information, he additionally instructed her he deliberate to file for divorce, Mr. Depp testified.

“Someone needed to name it,” he acknowledged.

When he returned to the penthouse to select up a few of his belongings, Mr. Depp testified, the couple acquired into an argument in regards to the feces that an worker had discovered within the mattress the earlier month. Mr. Depp stated he didn’t throw the cellphone at her, however moderately, he “flopped” it onto the sofa. He accused Ms. Heard of faking that she had been injured throughout the confrontation with a purpose to persuade her mates that she was in some peril.

“‘Cease hitting me, Johnny!’ she’s screaming in her greatest freaked out, upset voice,’” Mr. Depp testified.

Additionally performed in court docket Monday was an audio recording of a cellphone dialog between the couple from June 2016 by which Mr. Depp challenged Ms. Heard on whether or not she believed that the accusations she had put within the software for a restraining order have been true.

“Do you imagine all this, Amber?” Mr. Depp stated within the name. “You imagine I’m an abuser?”

“Sure!” Ms. Heard replied repeatedly.

Greater than two years after she was granted the short-term restraining order, The Washington Put up printed Ms. Heard’s op-ed, which included broader policy-based arguments for nationwide responses to gender-based violence. Ms. Heard testified that she had agreed to the op-ed as a result of she wished to lift consciousness about these points, not as a result of she wished to incorporate specifics about her experiences with Mr. Depp or drum up publicity for her film on the time.

Making an argument for her countersuit, Ms. Heard additionally testified about statements by Mr. Depp’s former lawyer that tried to discredit her accusations, saying that it was “torture” to relive the accounts of abuse that she has shared in court docket.

“I simply wished him to depart me alone,” Ms. Heard stated of Mr. Depp. “I wished to maneuver on with my life, and he gained’t let me.”