‘He was laughing’: Amber Heard witness blast Johnny Depp in defamation trial
Multiple witnesses for Amber Heard have testified they saw her with injuries after several alleged beatings by Johnny Depp, who called her a ‘wh***’ among other slurs.
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Witnesses in support of Hollywood actress Amber Heard have made a string of bombshell claims in her ongoing defamation trial against her ex-husband, Johnny Depp.
Heard’s sister, best friend, and a make-up artist have testified that they saw Heard with black eyes, a busted lip, and bloody patches of missing hair after a string of alleged beatings by Depp.
They included Heard’s sister Whitney Henriquez, 34, who took the stand in the Fairfax County Court in Virginia.
Henriquez told the court that Heard and Depp had “seemed really in love” at first – until Depp gradually became more controlling and abusive towards her sister.
Henriquez alleged “some device of Amber’s would get smashed” any time she and Depp fought.
She alleged that her sister “lost a phone, a tablet, a laptop” and that she quickly became suspicious that Depp was physically abusing Heard, who often had unexplained bruises and cuts on her body.
Henriquez claimed that she also witnessed Depp “hurl” a steak knife at his assistant, call his then-wife Heard a “slimy wh**e,” even consume the contents of a ziplock bag full of mystery pills “to see what would happen”.
On another occasion, Depp threatened one of Heard’s dogs by grabbing the pet and holding him out a car window, she told the court.
“Johnny is holding our dog out the window,” Henriquez said. “I froze. I was scared. I knew how inebriated he was.”
“He was just laughing. This dark, cackle. Then he joked about putting the dog in the microwave.”
#AmberHeard's friend got emotional during a video deposition while explaining Heard's facial injuries. "It's a photo of Amber's face with two black eyes, and swollen bottom lip, swollen nose," Raquel Pennington said. @LawCrimeNetworkpic.twitter.com/rwHhxcenLH
— Law&Crime Network (@LawCrimeNetwork) May 18, 2022
‘I WAS WORRIED FOR AMBER’S SAFETY’
In a recorded deposition played for the jury earlier, Heard’s former best friend Raquel “Rocky” Pennington testified that she also “periodically” saw cuts, bruises and burns on the actresses’ body in the aftermath of several alleged beatings by Depp.
Pennington said while she never witnessed Depp hit Heard, she did see a series of “very, very long, deep” cuts on the actress’ forearms. She also recounted one alleged incident where Depp was berating Heard so badly that Pennington threw herself over her friend’s body to protect her while Depp screamed at his then wife to “get the f**k up”.
“I was scared for Amber,” Pennington said through tears.
“I was worried for her physical safety. I was worried that when he turned, he might accidentally do something that was worse than he ever intended.”
The arm cuts, and similar injuries on Heard’s feet, were visible when the actress returned to Los Angeles from Australia in March 2015, Pennington said in the January 2022 deposition.
Heard, 36, has testified that Depp, 58, sexually assaulted her with a bottle on that trip.
She added that Depp referred to himself as “the monster” when he talked about his other side.
Witness Josh Drew also testified in a prerecorded deposition played in court on Wednesday that Heard did not want to file a report against Depp after their final May 2016 altercation.
Speaking in November 2019, Drew recalled seeing Heard after the incident while she was being comforted by his then wife, Pennington.
The actress was “catatonic”, Drew said.
WITNESS: ‘I WAS SCARED OF DEPP’
Elizabeth Marz testified via 2019 deposition that when she saw Johnny Depp on May 21, 2016 he flew into a rage and she was so “scared of him” she was forced to hide.
Marz, a self-described “self-love empowerment coach and inspirational speaker,” said she was with Pennington, who was close friends with Heard at the time and living in neighbouring penthouse, when they heard Depp and Heard arguing down the hall. She said she heard the sounds of raised voices and destruction before Depp burst through a door to a room she was in. She described his demeanour as “sloppy” and “combative” that night.
“Personally, I was scared of him, that’s all I can, the one interaction I had with him that night, it was frightening to me,” Marz said.
She said Depp started screaming “Get your bitch out of here”.
“From where I was standing, it felt like he was charging towards me,” she said.
“His whole being really frightened me.
“From my perspective, whether he was coming toward me or not, it scared me and I just ran out past him.”
She ran and hid in a communal pool and gym area in the building.
“I remember being scared and not wanting to leave that area until, like, I was clear and wasn’t gonna be attacked,” Marz said.
The court heard that Marz later reunited with Heard, Pennington and others who had witnessed the alleged incident. She said Heard had red marks on her face and looked like she’d “been hit”.
MAKE-UP ARTIST: ‘SOMEONE HAD HEADBUTTED HER’
In a video deposition played on Wednesday, Heard’s former make-up artist Melanie Inglessis testified that the actress had bruising and swelling on her face, as well as a busted lip, after an alleged confrontation with Depp.
In the clip filmed on February 2, 2021, Inglessis said Heard looked like “someone had headbutted her lightly” before an appearance on “The Late Late Show with James Corden” on December 16, 2015.
Inglessis said she specialised in special effects make-up, which included “covering bruises”, and recounted concealing the actress’s facial injuries before she appeared on the program.
“I just did make-up, just a little heavier … we covered the discolouration, the bruises, with a little slightly heavier concealer,” Inglessis said.
“One that has a little more of a peach undertone, which I normally don’t use on Amber, but peach do cancel blue, so I did that under the eyes.”
#AmberHeard's makeup artist testified about her experience concealing bruises and creating bruises for special effects. @LawCrimeNetworkpic.twitter.com/9bSIRJwKFu
— Law&Crime Network (@LawCrimeNetwork) May 18, 2022
Inglessis also corroborated Heard’s account of injuries she sustained on that date, including that she was missing a chunk of her hair and had a busted lip.
“I remember this ’cause she showed it to us,” she said.
‘JOHNNY SCREAMING AND A COMMOTION’
Amber Heard’s former acting coach Christy Sexton was her final witness to testify on Wednesday. Sexton, who is based in Australia, appeared via a prerecorded deposition from December 18, 2019. She started working with Heard in 2011 and coached her through her breakout role in “Aquaman” in 2017.
Sexton said she noticed red marks and bruises on Heard’s body after her infamous trip to Australia with Depp in 2015. She testified that Heard would show up “sobbing” to sessions as her relationship progressed with Depp and that she “has a little difficulty crying, acting wise”.
Sexton also recounted her experience with Heard and Depp when they all went on a trip to a luxury caravan park in the desert in June 2013.
Sexton testified that the trip began with everyone having a “lovely time,” including Depp who was singing and playing guitar. The group was passing around a bag of white powder and mushrooms, though Sexton said she did not partake because she’d had surgery not long before the trip.
“I went to bed early. While my friend and I were in our trailer … we heard the fighting happening,” Sexton said.
“Johnny screaming and a commotion.”
The next morning, Sexton went to check on Heard in the trailer she shared with Depp and found it “in “shambles”, she said.
“I saw a completely torn apart trailer,” Sexton added.
“Johnny was apologising for what he had done, and he was instructing his bodyguards to just pay it off. ‘Let’s take care of it’ … Amber was really shaken up.”
Depp’s lawyer Camille Vasquez finished her cross-examination of Heard as part of the multimillion-dollar defamation suit filed against the actress by her ex-husband, Depp, on Tuesday.
Heard was grilled on the stand earlier in the day about why she bought a knife inscribed “until death” for Depp after testifying he was already “hitting” her and saying that she feared for her life.
Vasquez challenged Heard’s account of when her allegations of abuse by Depp began, noting that Heard initially said 2013 but then said she recalled some incidents in 2012.
“He was hitting me in 2012,” Heard said.
“He just took a break in the middle.”
Vasquez then called for a knife to be brought into the court and showed it to Heard and the jury. The court was told that the actress gifted the weapon to Depp in 2012 during their volatile relationship. The jury had previously been shown a photo of the weapon that had “Until Death” inscribed in Spanish.
“That’s the knife you gave to the man who was hitting you, right?” Vasquez asked the Aquaman star.
“The man who was allegedly abusing you … the man who would get drunk and violent with you, right?”
Heard responded: “I wasn’t worried that he was going to stab me with it when I gave it to him, that is for certain.”
Heard testified on Monday that she filed for divorce from the Pirates of the Caribbean star in May 2016 because she feared for her life.
“I had to leave him,” Heard said. “I knew I wouldn’t survive if I didn’t. I was so scared that it was going to end really badly for me.” Heard said Depp would become a physically and sexually abusive “monster” when he was drinking and her efforts to curtail his drug and alcohol use had proven futile.
“The monster had been this thing that was now the normal and not the exception,” she told the seven-person jury hearing the case in Fairfax, Virginia. “The violence was now normal.” The 58-year-old Depp, during his four days on the witness stand, denied ever striking Heard and claimed she was the one who was frequently violent.
Depp filed the suit against Heard over an op-ed she wrote for The Washington Post in December 2018 in which she described herself as a “public figure representing domestic abuse.”
Heard, who had a starring role in Aquaman, did not name Depp in the op-ed, but he sued her for implying he was a domestic abuser and is seeking US$50m (A$72m) in damages.
The Texas-born Heard countersued, asking for US$100m (A$144m) and claiming she suffered “rampant physical violence and abuse” at his hands.
Heard said the trial has forced her to live “over and over again the most intimate, embarrassing, deeply humiliating and personal things that I’ve survived.”
“I want to move on and I want Johnny to move on,” she said. “I just want him to leave me alone.” Filing for divorce was “the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do,” the actress said.
“It was hard because I loved Johnny so much,” she said. “I loved him so much.” Heard said the same week she filed for divorce she sought a temporary restraining order following an argument during which Depp threw a mobile phone at her, hitting her in the face.
#AmberHeard arrives at the courthouse â¦@LawCrimeNetworkâ© #JohnnyDeppvAmberHeardpic.twitter.com/FRdM5PYtb8
— Angenette Levy (@Angenette5) May 17, 2022
Judge Penney Azcarate has scheduled closing arguments in the case for May 27, after which it will go to the jury.
Depp’s lawyers have put experts on the stand who testified that he has lost millions because of the abuse accusations, including a $22.5m payday for a sixth instalment of “Pirates.” Depp filed the defamation complaint in the United States after losing a separate libel case in London in November 2020 that he brought against The Sun for calling him a “wife-beater.”
Depp, a three-time Oscar nominee, and Heard met in 2009 on the set of The Rum Diary and were married in February 2015. Their divorce was finalised two years later.
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