Johnny Depp and Amber Heard
As actor Johnny Depp continues his quest to reverse the public’s understanding of his allegedly abusive relationship with ex-wife Amber Heard, a Virginia jury heard a series of profane, taunting and at times, screaming audio recordings appearing to help him make that case. In one of the tapes, Heard appears to admit to having hit him and berates him as a “baby.”
“You didn’t get punched. You got hit,” Heard tells him on the recording. “I’m sorry I hit you like this, but I did not punch you. I did not fucking deck you. I fucking was hitting you. I don’t know what the motion of my actual hand was. But you’re fine. I did not hurt you. I did not punch you. I was hitting you.”
After Depp tries to interject, she taunts him: “I’m not sitting here bitching about it, am I? You are. That’s the difference between me and you. You’re a fucking baby.”
Depp has been testifying inside a courthouse in Fairfax County, Va., where he filed a $50 million lawsuit accusing Heard of defaming him in a 2018 Washington Post editorial describing herself as a survivor of domestic abuse. The Pirates of the Caribbean star claims that he is in fact the victim, and another recording appears to show Heard acknowledging that she threw pots and pans at him.
“Just because I’ve thrown pots and pans does not mean that you come and knock on the door,” Heard said, in the middle of an argument after Depp told her he escaped their fights by going to the bathroom.
In a separate tape, Heard does not appear to dispute Depp after he tells of her “hitting me in the skull.” Instead, Heard appears to justify her behavior.
“There was a lot going on, and I was on Ambien,” Heard responded.
After Depp’s lawyer described Heard’s allegations as a “hoax,” Heard filed a defamation counterclaim. The dueling defamation allegations are being heard in tandem. Throughout the trial, the parties have disputed whether Heard threw a broken bottle at him in March 2015 in Australia, slicing off a fingertip. His doctor and nurse previously testified at his trial. Depp initially told an emergency room doctor he severed it with a knife. Other accounts had it that he slammed it with a phone.
In the recording, Depp appears to tell Heard that the incident happened during their argument, and she does not contradict him. The exchange begins with Depp describing moving to a different room to avoid Heard.
“It’s just to get out of a bad situation while it’s happening before it gets worse,” Depp said. “In Australia, when we had the big fight where I lost the tip of my finger, at least five bathrooms and two bedrooms I went to—”
“To avoid talking to me,” an emotional Heard replies.
“To escape the fight,” Depp continues.
“You don’t escape the fight; you escape the solution,” Heard presses.
In 2016, Heard filed for divorce and turned to court for a temporary restraining order against Depp. He recalled the abuse allegations surfaced on his daughter’s birthday. Depp also claimed to have recalled hearing her scream “Stop hitting me” on a phone, when he and his then-bodyguard Jerry Judge entered the room. He claims to have been standing 20 feet away from her at the time. Judge died in 2019.
Learn more about the trial and the “Depp Heads” attending it on Law&Crime’s podcast “Objections: with Adam Klasfeld“:
(Screenshot via Law&Crime Network)
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