Everything you need to know about Johnny Depp’s libel trial against Amber Heard

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 his film career took a hit after Heard wrote a 2018 op-ed in The Washington Post referring 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 he filed for a restraining order against him in 2016.

“Paria de Hollywood”

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 their brief marriage, often in situations where she says he drank so much he passed out.

Depp said Heard’s allegations of substance abuse have 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.

Heard’s lawyers have highlighted many text messages Depp sent to friends recounting copious amounts of alcohol and drugs he had taken at a time when he says 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 his friend Thompson.

Depp said that Heard was the perfect embodiment of the book’s femme fatale character 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.  

How was the marriage destroyed?

Depp said things began to change in their marriage when he felt he was “suddenly wrong about everything” in Heard’s eyes. 

Depp said Heard made small passes at him, put him down and berated him. The insults turned into full-on circular discussions that “there was no getting in or out of,” Depp said. “It was kind of an endless parade of insults,” Depp said. 

Shortly after, Heard began physically attacking him, Depp added. He said he once threw two bottles of vodka at her, the second of which exploded and cut her finger to the point where the bone was exposed. Depp said he used the resulting blood to write on his walls and recount the lies he had caught Heard in. At the hospital, Depp said that he lied to protect Heard and told the doctors that he had been injured. Heard’s attorneys maintain that he cut his finger. 

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 drunk. Depp testified that he took two oxycodone pills – an opiate to which he admits he was addicted at the time – and he 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 expressing his desire to kill and sully Heard. 

After saying he wanted to burn her, Depp wrote: “Let’s drown her before we burn her!!! I’m going to fuck her burnt corpse afterwards 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 I 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 humorous moments. 

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 the 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, 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.