Actor Johnny Depp’s testimony in the defamation case against his ex-wife, actress Amber Heard, ended as the court heard audio of the couple arguing once again. In the audio, Depp accused Heard of not letting him “fucking leave” the conversation, and she accused him of pushing her.
“Stop pushing me in the corner, and then poking me with a stick,” she said. “Stop poking me. Stop brushing me. Stop throwing me against the wall and going, ‘Wait, you don’t like that wall? You don’t like the fucking wall?’ Stop pushing me.”
“Amber, I’m not pushing you,” Depp said. “I’m brushing you. I said, ‘I need space. I don’t want this conversation anymore right now. I need space.’ And will take my space whether you like it or not.”
Depp: I’m really getting frustrated…so let me go….why are you saying stop?
Heard: You’re making it worse for me. You’re causing me immense stress when you walk away like that.
Depp: You won’t let me f-ing leave!#JohnnyDepp v #AmberHeard pic.twitter.com/1d0vSmBVup— Cathy Russon (@cathyrusson) April 25, 2022
Mutual recriminations marked the $50 million defamation lawsuit and $100 million countersuit filed in Fairfax County, Virginia.
Heard filed to divorce Depp in 2016 and got a restraining order against him. She did not name him in a 2018 op-ed in The Washington Post, but Depp sued her, claiming her claims made him a pariah. Attorneys for Heard said that Depp subjected her to physical and sexual abuse, including penetrating her with a liquor bottle during a three-day drug bender in Australia.
Jurors are shown text messages between Depp and Vanessa Paradis, his former partner.
Depp: It was a joke. It certainly was not about Miss Heard, we didn’t speak of her much together. #JohnnyDepp #AmberHeard @LawCrimeNetwork pic.twitter.com/1t94WQgmx6
— Sierra Gillespie (@sierragillespie) April 25, 2022
More audio played in court showed Heard telling Depp she stepped forward with abuse claims because his team forced her hand.
AUDIO RECORDING #AmberHeard: Every ounce of my credibility has been taken from… #JohnnyDepp: The abuse thing, we’ve got to deal with that, yeah…why did you put it out there?
Heard: Your team forced me to by going on the offense (her w/abuse allegations)@LawCrimeNetwork pic.twitter.com/1QZKl8QEV7— Cathy Russon (@cathyrusson) April 25, 2022
Depp and his team are arguing that Heard is the real abuser, and that she gaslit him about the mistreatment. The actor acknowledged writing lurid texts about her during their relationship but he attributed this at times to an “irreverent” sense of humor, and his artistic influences, including late friend and gonzo journalist Hunter S. Thompson and director Stanley Kubrick‘s film A Clockwork Orange.
“Lets burn Amber!!!” Depp wrote friend, actor Paul Bettany, in a text, later stating that they should drown her before they burn her. “I will fuck her burnt corpse afterwards to make sure she is dead…”
Depp insisted that this was just a reference to a scene in the classic English comedy Monty Python and the Holy Grail, in which a group of peasants accuse a woman of being a witch.
Through testimony from the actor and his sister, Depp’s team is trying to show that the actor internalized his mother abusing his passive father.
Marriage counselor Laurel Anderson, who worked with the couple when they sought therapy in 2015, testified that the couple “engaged in what I saw as mutual abuse.”
If there is one thing both sides of the case can agree on, it is that the relationship was manifestly toxic.
“I’m begging you to stop,” Heard said in audio played Monday.
“Okay, stop,” Depp said.
[Screenshot via Law&Crime Network]
