Johnny Depp, Amber Heard trial: Actor’s brutal promise revealed
The Aquaman actress has revealed the cold declaration her ex-partner made to her in 2016 with an audio recording played out in court.
Johnny Depp made an angry promise to Amber Heard in a San Francisco hotel room in 2016, telling her, “You will not see my eyes again,” according to an audio recording played in court during their defamation trial
The case between the two actors, which is being heard at Fairfax County Court House in Virginia near Washington DC, reconvened on Monday after a week-long hiatus.
Taking the stand, Heard testified that her ex-husband kept that promise from 2016.
“He won’t look at you, right?” Depp lawyer Camille Vasquez asked the actress at the start of cross-examination.
“He can’t,” Heard answered.
“Mr. Depp hasn’t looked at you once during this trial?” Vasquez continued.
“Not that I have noticed,” Heard said.
“You know why he won’t look at you,” the lawyer said. “He told you you would never see his eyes again.”
Heard is being sued by Depp for $US50million ($A67m) for implying he abused her in a 2018 Washington Post op-ed. Although she did not name him, he claims her allegations are false and cost him lucrative movie roles. Heard is countersuing for $US100 million (A$134m), claiming she suffered “rampant physical violence and abuse” at his hands.
Asked by Vasquez if she wasn’t the one who abused her ex, Heard answered, “I could never hurt Johnny.”
Earlier in the day, jurors heard audio recordings of phone calls between Johnny Depp and Amber Heard from 2016, in which she fumes at being called “a liar and a gold-digger.”
“I’m not lying about any of this s**t and I’m not after any of your money,” she could be heard saying on the tape, which was played in court on Monday.
Heard explained that Depp “refused” to not engage with the press about their divorce.
“He was calling me a liar and he was forcing me to prove it and I knew that was not going to be good for him,” she said.
During her time on the stand, Heard also alleged her ex mounted a “sophisticated smear campaign” to ruin her career and reputation after she filed for divorce in May 2016.
She told the jury that she tried to get Depp to “stop the smear campaign,” adding, “I was begging not to deal with this, to be where I’m sitting today.”
The Aquaman actress claimed that Depp threatened to make her unhirable in Hollywood.
“Johnny told me that he would ruin me,” she said. “That no one would ever touch me – professionally that no one would ever work with me again. That I would never work again. That he would ruin my career.”
Heard said she decided to file for divorce from Depp in May 2016, despite his assurances that he was clean and sober, that he was sorry and that he “wasn’t the monster.”
“I had worked so hard to try to make this relationship work … it was falling apart,” Heard told jurors of her unravelling marriage. “I knew I had to leave him. I knew I wouldn’t survive if I didn’t.”
“The violence was now normal and not the exception,” she testified.
Through tears, Heard said her decision to divorce “was so hard but I knew I had to do it.”
Heard said she “loved Johnny so much,” but reiterated that she felt the only way out for her was to leave him.
“I knew if I didn’t [divorce him], I likely wouldn’t literally survive,” she said. “I was so scared.”
While being questioned by her lawyer, Heard also defended her 2018 Washington Post op-ed, insisting her claims were all accurate.
“What, if anything, in this op-ed is incorrect?” Heard’s lawyer Elaine Bredehoft asked.
“Nothing,” the actress testified. “Every word is true.”
“It’s not about Johnny,” she added. “The only one who thought it was about Johnny was Johnny. It’s about me. It’s about what happened to me.”
This article originally appeared in the New York Post and was reproduced with permission.
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