Amber Heard took the witness stand today, the 14th day of the $50 million defamation trial lodged by her ex-husband Johnny Depp. (Heard is countersuing Depp for $100 million, claiming his legal team falsely accused her of making fabricated claims about their relationship.) During Heard’s testimony, the actor accused Depp of sexual assault and numerous other instances of physical violence amplified by drug and alcohol abuse. Depp, who is suing Heard over an op-ed she wrote for The Washington Post in which she claimed to be a victim of domestic abuse, denied the accusations that he was physically abusive. In turn, he claims that the op-ed harmed his career, ruining his chances of returning to the Pirates Of The Caribbean franchise.
Heard testified that the trial was an absolutely horrible experience. “I struggle to find the words to describe how painful this is,” Heard said. “This is horrible for me to sit here for weeks and relive everything. Hear people that I knew — some well, some not — my ex-husband with whom I shared a life, speak about our lives in the way that they have. This is the most painful and difficult thing I’ve ever gone through, for sure.”
The specifics of Heard’s accusation include Depp repeatedly hitting her. The first time he did so was over a remark about one of his tattoos, which he claimed read “Wino,” causing Heard to laugh. “I just laughed because I thought he was joking, and he slapped me across the face,” Heard said. “And I laughed. I laughed because I didn’t know what else to do. I thought this must be a joke. I didn’t know what was going on. I just stared at him.”
Heard said that he responded, “You think you’re a funny bitch,” and hit her twice more.
Afterward, she said, Depp begged for forgiveness, getting on his knees and apologetically saying, “I thought I put the monster away.” Depp continued apologizing to her in the days after the incident, texting messages, like “I’d rather cut my hand off than ever lay it upon you.”
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Later, Heard claims, Depp performed a “cavity search” on her when she and Depp were on vacation in the upscale trailer park community outside Joshua Tree called Hicksville. After a night of partying and possibly drug use, Heard said that she and Depp returned to her trailer, where Depp began smashing things in the trailer and accusing her of hiding cocaine. Believing the drugs were in her vagina, Heard claimed Depp ripped her clothes and underwear off. “He was telling me, ‘We’re going to conduct a cavity search shall we?’ Like, just shoved his fingers inside me,” she testified.
Heard painted a fuller picture of their relationship at the beginning of her testimony, describing the former spouses’ meeting on the set of the 2011 film The Rum Diary: “He was the love of my life, but he was also this other thing. The other thing was awful.”