By MATTHEW BARAKAT, Related Press
FAIRFAX, Va. (AP) — There’s not a lot room for center floor within the testimony thus removed from Johnny Depp and Amber Heard in Depp’s libel go well with towards his ex-wife.
Heard has not but completed telling the jury her aspect of issues. Her testimony will proceed Could 16 as soon as the trial — which has already stretched on for 4 weeks — resumes after a one-week break. Then she is going to face what one can safely assume might be an aggressive cross-examination in a case the place either side have employed scorched-earth techniques going again years to when the go well with was first filed.
Depp is suing Heard in Virginia for libel over an op-ed she wrote in December 2018 in The Washington Publish describing herself as “a public determine representing home abuse.” The article doesn’t point out Depp by identify, however his attorneys say the article defames him nonetheless as a result of it’s a transparent reference to the extremely publicized allegations Heard made when she filed for divorce in 2016 and obtained a brief restraining order towards him.
Political Cartoons
Depp says he by no means bodily abused Heard, whereas Heard says she was assaulted on greater than a dozen events.
Under are synopses of some incidents and their divergent accounts.
Heard says the primary time Depp ever struck her was in 2013, when she made the error of laughing at one among his tattoos. Heard stated there was an older tattoo she could not make out, and Depp instructed her it stated “Wino.”
The truth is, it used to say “Winona Eternally,” a tattoo that Depp obtained when he was courting actor Winona Ryder. He had it altered to “Wino Eternally” after they broke up.
Heard stated she laughed, and Depp responded by slapping her. Pondering the slap have to be a joke, she laughed. Depp responded by slapping her twice extra, with the third slap knocking Heard off stability.
“It was so silly, so insignificant,” Heard instructed the jury. “I believed it have to be a joke.”
Depp, whereas he was on the stand, flatly denied it occurred.
“It didn’t occur,” he stated. “Why would I take such nice offense to somebody making enjoyable of a tattoo on my physique? That allegation by no means made any sense to me.”
THE FINGER AND THE BOURBON BOTTLE
Either side say the worst violence occurred in March 2015 in Australia, when Depp was capturing the fifth “Pirates of the Caribbean” film.
Heard stated Depp sexually assaulted her with a liquor bottle — for the primary time Thursday she recognized a bottle of Maker’s Mark bourbon because the offending instrument after she stated she noticed a photograph of the distinctively sq. bottle — as a part of an alcohol-fueled rage. Heard got here to Australia after capturing her personal movie and Depp instantly accused her of sleeping together with her co-stars, she stated.
Depp, for his half, says he was the sufferer of the violence. He testified that Heard was irate over efforts by Depp’s attorneys to have her signal a post-nuptial settlement, in addition to the truth that Depp wasn’t adhering to pledges of sobriety to Heard’s satisfaction.
He stated he escaped the argument by pouring himself a drink, at which level Heard threw a vodka bottle at him. Depp stated he responded by pouring one other drink, and this time Heard threw one other vodka bottle at him that smashed towards his hand whereas it rested on a counter and severed the tip of his center finger.
Images of the aftermath present Depp wrote vulgar messages to his spouse in blood on the partitions of the home. Jurors have additionally seen contemporaneous textual content messages Depp despatched to others through which he stated he lower off his personal finger. Depp stated he made up that story to guard Heard and keep away from police involvement.
Whereas not a selected incident, Depp and Heard painted very totally different portraits of Depp’s drug and alcohol use.
Heard stated medication and alcohol — together with paranoid jealousy — is what turned him from the person she beloved into the “monster” who made her concern for her life. She stated he hid his drug and alcohol use from her and from his household however his habits made it clear he was excessive or drunk, usually to the purpose of incoherence.
”Johnny on velocity may be very totally different from Johnny on opiates. Johnny on opiates may be very totally different from Adderall and cocaine Johnny, which may be very totally different from Quaaludes Johnny, however I needed to get good at listening to the totally different variations of him,” Heard stated.
Certainly, Heard sys Depp’s denials of bodily abuse lack credibility partially as a result of he would black out and neglect what he’d executed.
Depp, for his half, admitted that he’d grow to be addicted at one level to oxycodone and underwent a detox course of in 2014. However he stated the allegations of uncontrolled drug and alcohol use are grossly embellished.
“I’ve all the time had a reasonably large tolerance for alcohol,” he testified. “I’ve by no means had a bodily habit to alcohol.”
Copyright 2022 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This materials might not be revealed, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
