`He knows he's guilty'
Depp's lawyers question Amber Heard about knife, love notes in tense cross-examination
Attorneys for Johnny Depp continued a tense crossexamination of Amber Heard Tuesday, attempting to cast doubt on abuse claims the actress has levelled against the actor in their ongoing defamation trial in a Virginia courtroom.
One of Depp's lawyers, Camille Vasquez, introduced a knife Heard gave to the Pirates of the Caribbean star in 2012 after she accused him of assaulting her.
“That's the knife you gave to the man who was hitting you? ... This is the knife you gave to the man who would get drunk and violent with you?” Vasquez asked.
“I wasn't worried he was going to stab me when I gave it to him, that's for certain,” Heard heatedly replied.
“But you gave it to him while he was abusing you, allegedly,” Vasquez fired back.
Depp, 58, is suing Heard for $50 million, saying she smeared him in a 2018 op-ed for The Washington Post when she claimed she was a victim of domestic abuse.
Heard, 36, is counter-suing for $100 million, claiming that Depp defamed her by calling her a liar.
In 2020, Depp lost a libel case against U.K. Sun after the British tabloid labelled him a “wife beater.” A London High Court judge ruled that he had assaulted Heard on several occasions.
Continuing on from Monday's cross-examination, Vasquez played several audio recordings in which the former couple hurled insults at one another. In one sad exchange, Heard tells Depp to “suck my d---” and calls him a “washed-up piece of s---” and a “joke.”
“I'm the joke in the industry, Amber,” Depp calmly replies. “Your jealousy is so tragic.”
After Heard was asked why she never appeared injured in any photos she was seen in following her then-husband's alleged violent outbursts, she maintained the images weren't digitally altered and said that her bruises were covered up by makeup.
“I have never edited the photograph ... I didn't touch it,” Heard said.
Vasquez showed jurors close-ups of Heard's face from a Dec. 31, 2015, photo-shoot with English photographer and film director Greg Williams — just two weeks after the actress claimed she had been repeatedly struck in the face during a physical fight.
After Heard revealed Monday that her part in next year's Aquaman sequel had been “pared down,” Depp's attorney contended that the only reason she landed the role in the DC film was because of her relationship with the three-time Oscar nominee.
“I got myself that role by auditioning,” Heard shot back.
During one tense exchange over how many bathroom doors Heard may have knocked on during a fight in Australia in 2015, Depp broke into a laugh.
But Vasquez did get Heard to concede that while she took photos of messages smeared in paint on a mirror in the home they were renting while he was shooting a fifth Pirates movie, she did not take any pictures of the injuries she claimed to have sustained at his hands. She also had no medical proof that she had been allegedly assaulted, suffering cuts to her arms and feet and a bruise to her jaw.
“No,” Heard said. “I did not want to tell anyone.”
“You didn't capture (a picture of) yourself in the mirror? Is that because you didn't have any injuries?” Vasquez said, contending that Heard was the abuser in their relationship.
“I didn't assault Johnny in Australia,” Heard countered. “I didn't assault Johnny ever.”
Elsewhere, Vasquez read aloud love missives Heard wrote to him in a shared notebook which she signed with her affectionate nickname, “Slim.”
“True love isn't about just the madness of passion or instead picking the safety of peace. No, it's about both,” Heard wrote in May 2015, two months after Depp's finger was severed following the fight in Australia.
“I still, perhaps more than ever, want to rip you apart, devour you and savour the taste,” she continued.
After alleging that Depp attacked her during their July 2015 honeymoon on the Orient Express train in Asia, Vasquez read another excerpt in which Heard called the trip “a wonderful and impulsive adventure,” adding, “I love you more and more every passing day.”
“It was primarily love notes,” Heard explained. “It was important for me to try and nurture as much peace as I could ... it's another example of me trying to fix (our relationship).”
The night before she filed for divorce from Depp in May 2016, jurors were shown video evidence of the actor James Franco in an elevator with Heard with the two nudging heads.
Earlier in the trial, Heard said that Depp “hated” Franco and accused her of “secretly having a thing with him in my past.”
When Vasquez asked Heard why Depp, who kept his head down throughout her testimony, won't look her in the eyes, she said he couldn't because he's not innocent.
“He's knows he's guilty,” Heard said. “I survived that man and I'm here.”
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I survived that man and I'm here. Amber Heard