Amber Heard broke down on the witness stand Wednesday as she described alleged physical and emotional abuse during her marriage to Johnny Depp.
“I am here because my ex-husband is suing me for an op-ed that I wrote,” Heard told the Fairfax, Virginia courtroom. “This is the most painful and difficult thing I have ever gone through.”
Heard then said Depp hit her numerous times during their marriage. She testified the first incident happened while he was drinking and had a jar of cocaine on the table. She said the actor “slapped” her across the face for laughing at one of his tattoos, then called her a “b***h” and slapped her again.
The actress said their relationship began after filming “The Rum Diary.” Before that, she’d only had small roles in “Zombieland,” “Pineapple Express,” and “Friday Night Lights.” Heard said she was thrilled to work with such a well-known actor on “The Rum Diary” and they bonded over “books, music and poetry.”
While shooting a scene for the film, Heard said Depp “grabbed my face and pulled me into him and really kissed me,” using his tongue, which she was said unusually intimate for a film shoot. “There’s certain things that you do to just maintain a certain line and it just felt like those lines were blurred,” Heard said about Depp using his tongue while shooting a movie kiss.
At the time, both Depp and Heard were in relationships with other people but each became single shortly after.
During the press tour for the film, Heard said they “fell in love.” Depp showered her with expensive gifts and the two spent the night together in Heard’s London hotel room. “For the rest of the press tour, it was on,” said Heard.
She said Depp made her feel like “the most beautiful person in the whole world. You know, made me feel seen, made me feel like a million dollars.” But she was concerned about the “dream” romance and that the two were living in what Heard described as a “bubble.” She said Depp wanted to keep the relationship “under the radar” because he hadn’t announced his split from his children’s mother. “As Johnny pointed out, the world would blame me and call me a homewrecker even though I had nothing to do with it.”
Heard described herself as being “head over heels” in love, but said Depp’s behavior started changing. She said he was drinking and would disappear. Heard said Depp also became controlling and criticized her clothing. She said she found herself not talking about auditions because “he would make these comments about whoring myself out but do so in the context of me acting,” Heard recalled. “It felt really dirty to be an actor.”
She said Depp had a pattern of escalation. “He’d throw a glass, turn over a table, then he would hit the wall, then he would hit the wall really close to my head,” she told the court.
The actress added that Depp would accuse her of cheating but it would escalate “to the point where he would push me or shove me down.” Heard testified she remembered Depp hitting her in the face when she denied having an affair with an ex. “He said he had proof. I denied it. I was walking out of the bedroom and he slapped me across the face.”
Heard said she found herself “walking on eggshells.”
“My defense was, I’d go to some other place. I don’t know how to describe what it was, but I’d focus on something else. I’d stand up, look at him, try to stand up to him that way. Later, I adopted other strategies to deal with it,” she said.
Heard said Depp’s personality varied depending on what substance he took, including speed, opioids, Adderall, cocaine, quaaludes and alcohol.
“I had to get good at paying attention to the different versions of him,” Heard testified.
She confided in her therapists and her mom about the physical abuse she said she was suffering. “I just wanted to have someone to talk to about how scary it was. The rage and the uncontrolled violence,” she said.
Heard recalled one particular argument with Depp and said he hit her in the face while they were in their penthouse. “He wears a lot of rings. I remember kind of just feeling like my lip went into my teeth and it got a little blood on the wall.” Heard said she prided herself on being tough and never made a bid deal about “smaller injuries.”
Heard’s attorney showed a picture of the actress with a bruise on her arm she alleged was sustained during a fight with Depp. “He grabbed me by the arm and he kind of just held me on the floor screaming at me. I don’t know how many times he hit me in the face but I remember being on the floor of my apartment… thinking how could this happen to me again.”
On another occasion, Heard said Depp was “howling” and held his small dog out the window of a moving car. “I have a memory of everyone just kind of not really reacting to him. Like no one really kind of did anything.”
During a trip with friends to a trailer park, Depp and Heard were arguing and she alleged the “Pirates” actor sexually assaulted her. “He’s grabbing my breasts, he’s touching my thighs, he rips my underwear off and then he proceeds to do a cavity search. He said he was looking for his drugs, his cocaine, his coke.” Heard broke down describing the incident, “Just shoves his fingers inside me.”
She also told the court Depp would vomit on himself and lose control of his bowels during drug binges, leaving his staff to clean him up and change his pants.
During Heard’s testimony, Depp kept his eyes focused down toward the table where he was sitting.
Depp is suing Heard for $50 million, saying she defamed him in a 2018 Washington Post op-ed. In response, she filed a $100 million counterclaim.
Her attorneys requested Tuesday that the case be dismissed, but the judge’s denial of that motion set the stage for Heard to testify.
Over the past few weeks, Depp’s legal team put the “Pirates of the Caribbean” actor, his doctors, accountants, former CAA agent, and several expert witnesses on the stand before resting their case on Tuesday. The defense began calling witnesses Wednesday.
Heard has claimed that Depp physically and emotionally abused her before their 2016 divorce, and in the op-ed she wrote that she was a victim of domestic violence. Depp says he never once hit Heard. He and his team painted her as the abusive one – and said the Post article cost him career opportunities, including his iconic and lucrative “Pirates” role at Disney.