Six years after Amber Heard publicly named Johnny Depp as a domestic abuser, the actor’s lawyers called her a common liar who ruined her client’s life with fabricated allegations of physical violence and destroyed her career.
“Today, exactly six years ago, on May 27, 2016, Ms. Heard went to court and filed a false report of domestic abuse against her husband for 15 months, Johnny Depp,” said attorney Camille. Vasquez to the jurors in the defamation trial between the ex. – Couple on Friday.
“The scene was a montage,” Vasquez said, recounting the day Heard applied for a restraining order against Depp in Los Angeles. “She warned the paparazzi to wait. They knew exactly where she would stop, which side of her face to photograph. And the photos captured what she wanted them to see: the image of a battered woman.”
After seven weeks, dozens of witnesses and hundreds of spectators queuing up daily in hopes of getting a seat in the courtroom, the divorced couple’s lawyers finally filed their final arguments on Friday. While the breakup in 2016 was the initial focus of the last face of Depp’s lawyers, the case focuses on an opinion piece that Heard published two years later that did not identify Depp, but rather described as a survivor.
The glaring challenge Depp and his lawyers face: a set of evidence pointing out that Depp abused. He heard that a British judge described him as overwhelming when he reviewed it in a failed 2020 defamation case of the actor in the UK
“While Mr. Depp’s name will be tarnished forever by these horrific and false allegations,” Depp’s lawyer Benjamin Chew added, “this case is about telling you his story and the truth about what it really happened, which you can hear now. It’s about restoring their lost reputation. ”
Chew and Vasquez did their best to reshape history as the story of a famous target man.
Invoking the family of Mr. “It’s about showing Mr. Depp’s children, Lily Rose and Jack, that it’s worth fighting for the truth. It’s about restoring Mr. Depp’s name and position to Depp,” Chew said. the community as much as you can. ”
“And you can do something,” he said, “and only you, ladies and gentlemen, can do it for him.”
Depp is suing Heard for $ 50 million, alleging that he defamed him even without naming him in the 2018 Washington Post opinion piece, identifying himself as a victim of domestic violence. Heard’s $ 100 million lawsuit alleges that Depp, through a lawyer, Adam Waldman, defamed her with an orchestrated “smear campaign,” calling Heard’s allegations a “deception.”
Depp has testified that he, not Heard, was a victim of domestic violence, and that he has never beaten a woman in his life.
The North Virginia trial that pitted the divorced actors against each other gave jurors and the public a behind-the-scenes look at the scenes of the tumultuous short-lived celebrity union that officially disbanded in 2017.
Jurors heard completely opposite stories about the couple’s relationship, which began after the couple met on the set of the 2011 film The Rum Diary. According to Depp, he was subjected to verbal and physical abuse by Heard. “These things could happen very quickly,” he stated, explaining a black eye visible in a photograph of him and Heard of his honeymoon.
Heard claims Depp was a verbal, physical and even sexual abuser who had problems with drug and alcohol abuse.
Depp’s lawyers on Friday did not call Heard’s allegations a “deception”, but said she was the only physical abuser in her home, and reproduced recordings of Heard admitting to beating Depp and calling him a “baby” to oppose. .
Vasquez claimed there were no Depp recordings admitting abuse, no medical records or witnesses corroborating the graphic testimony Heard gave that he described beating, drowning and, in one case, being sexually assaulted with a bottle of liquor.
In fact, the audio captured Depp admitting that he hit her on the head, and several witnesses backed up items on her account, including an eyewitness account of Depp’s violence offered by Depp’s sister. Heard.
“Either she’s the victim of a horrible abuse,” Vásquez said, “or she’s a woman who is willing to say absolutely anything.”
While both sides have presented a wealth of testimony to bolster their claims, jurors at the end of the day must determine whether Heard acted with “real malice” when he wrote the opinion piece, which means that the actress knew that what she had written was false. or that he published the piece with “reckless contempt” for the truth.
The crux of Depp’s argument is that he never abused Heard, but she called him an abuser, sabotaging his career. To prove his case, Depp’s legal team presented several witnesses, including members of his own environment, to testify to Heard’s erratic behavior throughout their relationship.
“I would not say night [fights]but every two days, several times a week, “said Travis McGivern, one of Depp’s bodyguards, earlier this month about a trip to Australia in 2015, adding that there were” many insults, many bombs f Miss Heard directs her feelings to Mr. Heard. Depp “.
Photo of STEVE HELBER / POOL / AFP via Getty Images
Depp said that during that trip, Heard cut off his fingertip after throwing a bottle of vodka at him during a fight. Heard, however, claims that Depp sexually assaulted her with a bottle of liquor during a fight while Depp was in a three-day bender. And the audio played at trial seemed to capture Depp admitting the finger injury had been done.
Jack Whigham, Depp’s talented agent, also testified in a video deposition that Heard’s comment devastated his client’s career. He said that before the opinion edition, he had closed the negotiations for Depp to star in the sixth installation of Pirates of the Caribbean for $ 22.5 million. After it was released, he said, Disney abruptly dropped Depp from Pirates, a claim previously made by at least one Depp witness and a key statement in the larger case.
“As for Johnny, it was catastrophic,” Whigham said. “After the comment, it was impossible to get him a studio film, which is what we would normally have focused on.”
But Tina Newman, a production executive at Walt Disney Studios, said in a video deposition that she never saw any documents within the company that referred to Heard’s comment, and that she never had a role in his decisions around Depp.
Depp himself also intervened, stating that “the only person I have abused in my life is myself” and that he filed the lawsuit because he is “obsessed with the truth.”
“About six years ago, Mrs Heard did something quite hateful and disturbing [allegations of] criminal acts against me that were not based on any truth. It was a total shock, “Depp said.” There was no need to go in that direction, because nothing like that had ever happened. “
Heartd’s legal team has told the jury a very different story: Depp was the perpetrator of the relationship, and he and Waldman launched a “smear campaign” against the actress after her divorce. his comment that damaged his own career.
At the booth, Heard said her relationship with Depp was “almost like an endless fight” which she said she endured because she was deeply in love with the actor and always believed in her guarantees that she would be sober. She said, however, that during her relationship she was subjected to systematic violence, including a “cavity search” for cocaine, and that Depp threatened to kill her.
Several witnesses confirmed that Heard had been injured during his relationship with Depp, and the actress’ sister, Whitney Henriquez, testified that Depp beat them both in a fight in her Los Angeles penthouse.
Heard’s witnesses also questioned whether the opinion tarnished Depp’s career, noting his own self-destructive behavior.
“I’m here because my ex-husband is suing me for an opinion piece I wrote,” Heard said at the booth earlier this month. “It’s hard for me to find the words to describe how painful this is.”
“It’s horrible for me to be sitting here for weeks and reliving it all,” he said shortly afterwards, before adding, “This is the most painful and difficult thing I’ve ever experienced, without a doubt.”