Depp: ‘I have never struck a woman in my life’
JOHNNY Depp insisted he had “never struck any woman in my life” as he took the stand yesterday on day five of his £100million case with Amber Heard.
The Hollywood star, 58, spoke slowly as he gave evidence as part of his civil defamation claim against his ex-wife, 35, in Fairfax, Virginia.
He is suing over an article about domestic violence that she wrote for the Washington Post in 2018, two years after they split up.
With his hair scraped back into a ponytail, the Pirates Of The Caribbean star described “six years of trying times” caused by the actress’s “heinous” claim that he abused her.
Quasimodo
He said: “It’s very strange when one day you’re Cinderella…then 0.6 seconds later you’re Quasimodo.
“I didn’t deserve that, nor did my children, nor did the people who believed in me.
“I pride myself on honesty. I pride myself on truth.”
Depp spoke about his physically “violent” mother who handed out “a lot of verbal abuse” – testifying that the most his father did was punch a wall, “shattering his hand”.
He said she took pills “to try to commit suicide” when his father left – and admitted he first got into drugs after trying her “nerve pills” at the age of 11.
Mr Depp said his use of various substances had never been “for a party” but rather to “numb myself of the ghosts” from his youth.
He said his “substance abuse” had been “grossly embellished” by Ms Heard and that many of her allegations were “plainly false”.
Turning to Heard, he called the early days in his romance with the Aquaman star “too good to be true”.
He said: “She was attentive. She was loving. She was smart. She was kind. She was funny. She was understanding.” But he described a moment when Heard overreacted to him taking off his own boots, something she usually did for him. He said: “She approached with a look on her face…‘You took your boots off?’ ‘Yes, I did’, I said.”
Depp said she was “visibly shaken and upset” that he broke her “rules of routine”. He told the court that within nearly a year and a half, she had become “another person almost”.
On his daughter Lily-Rose, 22, and son Jack, 20, who were at high school at the time, the actor said: “I thought it was diabolical that my children would have to go to school and have [people] approach them with the infamous People magazine cover [featuring] Ms Heard with a dark bruise on their face.”
Depp is suing Heard for more than £38million, saying her abuse claims have harmed his career, while the actress has filed a countersuit against Depp seeking almost £78million in damages for the “smear campaign” against her. The trial continues.