Everything you need to know about Johnny Depp's libel trial against Amber Heard
Married for two years, the ex-spouses accuse each other of defamation during the much-followed trial. Here, everything you need to know about the war between Johnny Depp and Amber Heard and their stormy relationship.
For three days, Johnny Depp has been testifying in a libel trial that, at least in theory, is about whether his ex-wife Amber Heard defamed him in a 2018 Washington Post op-ed.
Since then, the trial has become a media spectacle in which Depp has testified to everything from taking pills as a child to nearly having a mental breakdown in which the actor said he used his severed finger to write. on the walls with his own blood to recount the alleged lies of his ex-wife.
Here's everything you need to know about Depp and Heard's war and their stormy relationship.
What motivated Johnny Depp to go to trial for libel?
While Heard's lawyers have warned that the trial would be a media spectacle that would expose the "real Johnny Depp", Depp, for his part, denies abusing Heard and, despite the public attention his drug use and his violent text messages, he has said that he is obsessed with revealing the truth and that he does not want to disappoint those who had admired him.
"My goal is the truth because it killed me that all those people I had met over the years... that those people thought I was a fraud," Depp said on Tuesday (04/19/2022).
The actor has said her film career took a hit after Heard wrote a 2018 op-ed in The Washington Post in which she referred to herself as a "public figure representing domestic abuse."
Heard never mentioned Depp by name, but Depp's lawyers said it was a clear reference to allegations Heard made when she filed for a restraining order against him in 2016.
"Hollywood Outcast"
Depp said the allegations and the article made him a Hollywood outcast and cost him his role in the lucrative "Pirates of the Caribbean" film franchise.
Heard's attorneys have argued that Heard's op-ed was accurate and did not libel him. They have said that Depp's ruined reputation was due to his own misbehavior and have argued that The Walt Disney Co. had already decided to fire Depp from "Pirates of the Caribbean" months before the article was published.
Amber Heard's accusations
Heard has accused Depp of physically and sexually assaulting her on multiple occasions before and during her brief marriage, often in situations where she says he drank so much he would pass out on her.
Depp said that Heard's allegations of his substance abuse had been "grossly embellished" and that he was never out of control during that period of time. The two met in 2009, married in 2015, and Heard filed for divorce a year later.
Johnny Depp takes the stand at the defamation trial against ex-wife Amber Heard: “For me to… spill the truth is quite exposing… I can’t say that I’m embarrassed because I know that I’m doing the right thing.”https://t.co/z7Qqkoc6wy pic.twitter.com/zokoryfAv3
— Variety (@Variety) April 19, 2022
Heard's attorneys have highlighted many text messages Depp sent to his friends recounting copious amounts of alcohol and drugs he had taken at a time when he claims he was not a problem drinker.
Depp filed a similar suit in England against a British newspaper and lost. The judge of that country determined that Depp assaulted Heard on a dozen occasions and made her fear for her life on multiple occasions. Heard is expected to testify later in the trial.
Beginning of the relationship between Depp and Heard
Depp and Heard met on the set of The Rum Diary, a 2011 Depp-produced film based on an initially unpublished novel by the late Hunter S. Thompson that Depp discovered while reviewing newspaper documents with her friend Thompson.
Depp said that Heard was the perfect embodiment of the femme fatale character from the book named Chenault. "That's the Chenault Hunter wants," Depp recalled. "Yes, she could definitely kill me."
"A Classic Hollywood Romance"
They started dating a few years later, with Depp portraying the early part of their relationship as a classic Hollywood romance. Depp called Heard "Slim," while she called him "Steve," nicknames used by Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall's characters in the 1944 film To Have and Have Not.
Depp, 58, said he was also aware of the age difference between himself and Heard, 36, and compared it to the 25-year difference between Bogart and Bacall.
"I acknowledge the fact that I was the rugged old wolverine and she was this beautiful creature," he said.
Johnny Depp describes the beginning of his relationship with ex-wife Amber Heard: “She was too good to be true.” https://t.co/z7Qqkoc6wy pic.twitter.com/Eow4XdnmeK
— Variety (@Variety) April 19, 2022
The Boston Flight
One of the main points of contention is what happened on a 2014 private flight from Boston to Los Angeles that Depp and Heard took while he was shooting the gangster movie Black Mass.
Heard has said that Depp assaulted her on the flight while he was drunk. Depp testified that he took two oxycodone pills – an opiate to which he admits he was addicted at the time – and locked himself in the plane's bathroom and fell asleep to prevent her from harassing him.
He told the court that he only had one glass of champagne during the flight. However, text messages he sent to actor Paul Bettany at the time referenced him having downed half a bottle of whiskey, "a thousand Red Bull vodkas" and two bottles of champagne before the flight.
Heard's lawyers have also pointed to text messages Depp sent to Heard after the flight, in which he said: "I am once again in a place of shame and regret. I must get better."
Other text messages from Depp
Heard's lawyers have focused on text messages Depp sent to Bettany in which he expressed his desire to kill and sully Heard.
After saying that he wanted to burn her, Depp wrote: "Let's drown her before we burn her!!! I'm gonna fuck her burnt corpse after her to make sure she's dead."
Depp has apologized to the jury for the vulgar language and has said that "in the heat of the pain that he felt, I went to dark places". He also compared his writing to Thompson's style of gonzo journalism, which often incorporated brash language and embellished thoughts.
Moments of humor
Despite the dark accusations and profane text messages read to the court, Depp's testimony has occasionally had moments of humor.
When asked if he sometimes drinks whiskey in the morning, Depp replied: "I mean, isn't it happy hour anytime?"
And asked if he had ever given musician Marilyn Manson pills, Depp acknowledged that he once gave Manson a pill to "stop talking so much."
Depp also admitted that he has never seen Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl, the 2003 megahit in which he played the deranged Captain Jack Sparrow. Asked how the movie did for him, Depp smiled and said, "I didn't see it, but... well, the movie did pretty well, apparently."
And then there is the strange matter of the alleged vandalism of the penis. Heard's attorney repeatedly asked Depp if he was responsible for drawing a penis on a painting inside his home, shortly after the actor said Heard had cut off his finger. "Drawing a penis in a painting wasn't the first thing I thought of," Depp said.
Why the trial in Virginia?
The trial is taking place in the Circuit Court of Fairfax County (Virginia).
Heard's attorneys had tried to have the case tried in California, where the actors reside. But a judge ruled that Depp was within his rights to bring the case in Virginia because The Washington Post's computer servers for its online edition are located in the county.
Depp's lawyers have said they filed the case in Virginia in part because the state's laws are more favorable to his case.
