Johnny Depp returned to the witness stand on Wednesday, as his and Amber Heard’s dueling defamation trial barrels toward its conclusion.
During his testimony, he was asked about statements his UK libel trial attorney Adam Waldman made in April 2020 — including one in which he called her claims of abuse a “hoax’ and said she was using “fake sexual violence allegations as both a sword and shield.”
Heard has contended that those statements hurt her career. She testified that L’Oreal suspended sharing a shoot she had done for them, all promotional appearances she had planned for “The Stand” were canceled and communications with Warner Bros. on the second “Aquaman” movie “stopped at that point.” She says her role was eventually cut down dramatically. Her team has argued that Waldman made the statements on behalf of Johnny and damaged her career — which is why she countersued Depp for $100 million.
On the stand, Depp said the first time he saw the statements were when the countersuit against him was filed in August 2020. He said the statements seemed like “a lot of word salad” to him.
He was also asked about claims Heard made on the stand saying he didn’t have a role in landing her the part of Mera in “Aquaman.” He said that wasn’t true, explaining that after she had an audition for the film in September 2015, she and Warner Bros. had “concerns” about the movie shooting in Australia.
Saying he had a multi-year deal with WB at the time, Depp said he “knew those people” and when Heard “asked if I would speak to them,” he made a call to three “upper-echelon Warner executives.” After speaking with them, Depp said “ultimately she did get the job in the film, so hopefully, I suppose I had curbed their worries to some degree.”
When asked how many times he had done MDMA in his life, Depp said, “not that many times … maybe, in my lifetime, MDMA six, seven, maybe.” As to the extent he used on each occasion, Depp said, “Not enough to properly experience what the chemicals are supposed to do to you” — and denied Heard’s allegations he used 8-10 MDMA pills at once in Australia in March 2015. “I think one would die, probably rather quickly,” he added.
As Depp was shown photos of the alleged damage in Australia after the fight in which his fingered was severed, he was asked about a bloody tissue on the floor in one of the images.
“It came from my dripping finger, that’s why the tissue is — I’m 99.9% sure it looks like it has blood on it as well — that is what I held my finger with,” he said, claiming again that Heard threw bottles at him during the incident and one at his hand.
A text message to Dr. Kipper from March 7, 2015 was then shown to the jury again in which he called Amber “as full of s— as a Christmas goose” and “malicious, evil and vindictive c—.” In it, he noted he “cut the top of my middle finger off” and exclaimed, “I’m done. NO MORE!!!”
“I’m telling him that I’ve had it and I just lost a finger tip,” Depp recalled, saying he sent it about 30 minutes or so after the incident. “I would have had to sneak into a bathroom, lock myself in to type this out.”
He said that when Kipper arrived to treat his finger, there was “blood everywhere, obviously there was serious damage done” and that “there would be no point in lying to the man.” He claimed he told the doctor “that she had thrown a bottle of vodka and smashed and cut my finger off. The tip of my finger. A good chunk. I miss it.”
His attorney then moved on to the couple’s honeymoon aboard the Orient Express.
“There were times when it was very agreeable, very nice and then there were times when something had become dissatisfactory for her and she would start the rant, the blooming of a fight would be on deck there,” he said, “and at one point … I don’t remember it lasting long at all, I just remember I took a pretty good shot to the face, to the eye, so I had a bit of a shiner, but it all ended and we’d go to dinner and it was all fine.”
When asked if she apologized “for giving you the shiner,” he said, “I don’t recall.”
The photograph of the couple with the chef on the train (above) was shown again, with Depp saying his eye was “a little bit bugged out” in the image after “Ms. Heard hit me.” He said it looked like he had a black eye in the image and didn’t believe it was Photoshopped.
The Kate Moss allegation was brought up as well.
“As Kate testified, it was many, many years ago and exactly what happened is what she said happened,” Depp claimed. “I recall speaking with Ms. Heard about that very incident because of the down-pouring of rain, it was raining heavily the day Kate slipped, and I recalled that story to her.”
“Ms. Heard took the story and turned it into a very ugly incident all in her mind,” he added. “There was never a moment where I pushed Kate down any set of stairs. Yet she’s skewed this three times before.”
Talking more about the incident, Depp said he left their bungalow ahead of her and rain started coming down “like a monsoon.” He said, “She slipped, her legs went up and she landed right on her coccyx and lower back. She was physically in pain, she was hurt, she was crying, I went over and grabbed her to make sure she was alright. That’s it. That’s the whole story. But then the rumor of it, I’d never heard a rumor of that before Ms. Heard grabbed hold of it.”
Depp then went on to talk about Amber’s sister, Whitney Vasquez, who testified earlier in the trial.
He said Whitney “seemed to always get the dirty end of the stick and I felt bad for that, because it wasn’t new. It had been there for life.” He said he took to her “very quickly,” but claimed she was treated like a “lackey … punching bag or the dart board” who was “the recipient of some rather demeaning and ugly words or she would have wine thrown in her face” by Amber.
“I witnessed quite a lot of it. The wine in the face was something that happened in New York, which, I think that even made it into the papers, it was in an elevator,” he claimed, saying Amber told him about it, “in detail.”
He said he had seen Amber “grab Whitney, push her around and there were half a dozen times when whoever was in the general vicinity would have to leave … and wait in the car while they fought, physically.”
He said that Whitney moved into one of their penthouses after splitting from her boyfriend. Depp claimed Vasquez moved out after an argument between Amber and Whitney over Whitney working with Jennifer Howell at Art of Elysium.
He said Amber asked her to leave.
Depp’s lawyers then asked him how he was affected after Heard filed a restraining order against him on May 20, 2016. “It changed everything,” he said, before he was asked how it’s been for him to listen to her testimony.
“It’s insane to hear heinous accusations of violence, sexual violence that she’s attributed to me, that she’s accused me of. I don’t think anyone enjoys having to split themselves open and tell the truth but there are times when one just simply has to because it’s gotten out of control,” he responded. “Horrible. Ridiculous. Humiliating. Ludicrous. Painful. Savage. Unimaginably brutal. Cruel. And all false. All false.”
“No human being is perfect, certainly not, none of us. But I have never in my life committed sexual battery, physical abuse, all these outlandish, outrageous stories of me committing these things and living with it for six years and waiting to be able to bring the truth out,” he added. “So this is not easy for any of us. I know that. But no matter what happens, I did get here and I did tell the truth and I have spoken up for what I have been carrying on my back, reluctantly, for six years.”
With that, his team wrapped. The hearing is ongoing.
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