Photo: STEVE HELBER/POOL/AFP via Getty Images
Shortly before 4 p.m. on May 16, Johnny Depp’s attorney began cross-examining Amber Heard in her libel suit against him. One of the actor’s attorneys, Camille Vasquez, opened the cross with a quick salvo. “Mr. Depp didn’t look at you once during this whole trial, did he?” Vasquez asked. “Not that I noticed,” Heard replied. , don’t you?” Vasquez insisted. “Yes, I have,” Heard said. Vasquez insisted, “You know exactly why Mr. Depp isn’t looking at you, don’t you?” Heard said, “Yeah.” “He promised you he’d never see you again, you’d never see his eyes again, right?” “I don’t remember if he said that” said Heard, his voice a low whisper.
Vasquez then released a recording from when Heard and Depp met at a San Francisco hotel in July 2016, on which he can be heard saying, “You will never see my eyes again.” Vasquez asked, “And he kept that promise, didn’t he?” “As far as I know he can’t look at me,” Heard replied. “He won’t look at you. Isn’t it, Mrs. Heard? Vasquez asked. “He can’t,” Heard replied. This exchange over whether Depp had promised to avoid Heard’s eyes set the stage for an inevitably long battle over the reliability of his memory and his general credibility.
Vasquez pressed Heard about the notorious photo – of what appear to be lines of cocaine on a table next to a box that says ‘Property of JD’ – that was presented at trial as evidence of his drug use . Vasquez attempted to undermine drug use by showing that the drug was always present. “There are four lines on this table, aren’t there? There’s no cocaine residue around those lines, is there? Vasquez asked. “Not that I can say,” Heard replied. Vasquez said it “doesn’t really look like anyone used cocaine on that table, does it?”
“With all due respect, I’m not sure you know how this works,” Heard said, his tone almost incredulous. “You do? You testified that you used cocaine?” Vasquez fired back. “I did,” Heard said matter-of-factly. “It doesn’t really look like Mr. Depp or anyone else was using cocaine on that table, does it?” Vasquez probed. “Uh, please disagree with you on that,” Heard replied. “When you snort cocaine, it usually goes into your nose. It doesn’t stay on the table. She also claimed that the tampon applicator that was present next to a credit card in the photo was a” device that I believe my sister taught her to use to put the cocaine in your nose”.
Vasquez asked if Heard had any pictures of Depp “actually using cocaine,” noting that Heard frequently took pictures of Depp in various states of alleged inebriation. “I don’t think I have a picture of him sniffling,” Heard replied. Vasquez also took issue with Heard’s claim that she believed Depp broke his nose after the 2014 Met Gala, asking, “You haven’t produced any photos or even medical records reflecting a broken nose?” Confronting Heard with photos of her and comedian Don Rickles taken the following night, Vasquez insisted that her “nose doesn’t appear to be injured in any of those photos.” “That’s why I wear makeup,” Heard answered clearly. Cross will continue on Tuesday.
Before Vasquez’s cross-examination, Heard’s attorney preemptively tried to address what will happen during it — question after question about potential inconsistencies in statements about Depp’s alleged abuse. Heard directly responded to claims that her allegations were a “hoax” and discussed the timeline of her alleged abuse at the hands of Depp. In the morning, Elaine Bredehoft, Heard’s lead attorney, began by addressing a potentially major point of contention: when the first case of alleged abuse took place. Heard previously said Depp first hit her in 2013, after she asked him about a tattoo of Winona Ryder on her arm, which read “Wino Forever.” Heard recalled, “I just laughed because I thought he was joking…and he slapped me in the face.” On Monday, Heard said the alleged incident actually took place in 2012, the same year they started dating. Heard, wearing a muted gray top, cried several times during her testimony. At one point, as Heard detailed Depp’s allegedly self-destructive behavior, he appeared to laugh as he whispered with his attorney.
“How come you think you got the date wrong?” asked Bredehoft. “I’m embarrassed to say that I think I would have liked to believe that the period of time that I have [fell] in love with Johnny…and he wasn’t violent with me, lasted much longer than that,” Heard said. “I think I would have liked to believe that I wasn’t affected so early in the relationship and still stuck around.” Bredehoft also asked Heard about his testimony that police were called prior to the May 2016 incident in which Depp allegedly threw a phone at him. Police were called in December 2011, in 2012 and “by a landlord” in 2013, Heard said. When Heard obtained a protective order against Depp following the alleged phone incident, she only mentioned several alleged attacks. Bredehoft asked Heard why she didn’t cite all of the alleged abuse cases. “I was following my lawyer’s advice,” she said.
Bredehoft also attempted to answer any potential cross-examination questions that might present some of Heard’s statements as novel opportunistic, appropriate for this trial. Heard testified that 17 acts of alleged abuse were reported in Depp’s UK libel suit against The sun newspaper. (Depp sued over a 2018 article calling him a “wife beater” and lost, with the court finding the phrasing to be “substantially true.”) Heard noted that she was not gone. in the case, only one witness. “When were you first called upon to provide a detailed account, as many times as you can remember, of Mr. Depp’s physical and sexual abuse?” asked Bredehoft. “A few months ago, in February, in 2022,” Heard said.
“How come you don’t remember all these events like this?” Bredehoft continued. “That’s not how your memory, or my memory, works,” Heard said. “As anyone can imagine, there was a lot going on, and unfortunately the violence became almost normal, especially towards the end.”
Heard also described an alleged fight after his 30th birthday party on April 21, 2016, over Depp’s late arrival. Depp threw a large bottle of champagne at her in their house and threw her phone out the window, Heard said. At one point, Depp grabbed his pubic bone. “He kind of pushed me down and held me down,” Heard said. Depp allegedly taunted her, “You’re a fucking badass.” As Heard recounted this alleged incident, Depp appeared to put gum or candy in his mouth. Heard’s lawyers showed photos of Heard with what appeared to be a large red bruise on his face following the alleged phone incident.
Heard clarified details around Washington 2018 To post op-ed Depp is suing her, which appeared online with the headline “I spoke out against sexual violence – and faced the wrath of our culture. This must change.
She said the article was not about her ex-husband and his alleged behavior. It was about her and what happened to her after their relationship ended. Heard said she had no nothing to do with the title and thought he first discovered it in connection with the lawsuit.
“The only one who thought it was about Johnny was Johnny,” Heard said. “It was about me. It’s about what happened to me after Johnny. It’s about what happened to me after I escaped my marriage. It’s about me, my life and what I’ve been through. Heard claimed she lost work — and much worse — as a result of her estrangement from Depp and the restraining order. “I was harassed and harassed on a daily basis, death threats…” Heard said. Decision makers in Hollywood, Heard said, were “so eager to support him.”
Heard was also asked about her counterclaim against Depp. One of her lawyers, Adam Waldman, previously called Heard’s allegations a “hoax” in an April 2020 news article – which defamed her, she claimed. “Is this a true or false statement? asked Bredehoft. “And why is it wrong? “To say it’s a ‘hoax’, that it’s not even real stuff, I mean, after everything I’ve been through and survived,” Heard said, “I hadn’t even talked about the sexual abuse from my marriage. I didn’t. I didn’t want to talk about it, ever.
This post has been updated.
