Actor Amber Heard tearfully told jurors on Thursday that Johnny Depp sexually assaulted her with a bottle of wine during an alcoholic rampage when she returned to the stands on Thursday, the second day of her testimony in a civil lawsuit.
Depp is suing Heard for defamation in a December 2018 Washington Post article that she wrote describing herself as a “domestic violence figurehead”. His lawyers say he was defamed by the article even though it never mentioned his name.
The March 2015 incident in Australia, where Depp was filming his fifth film ‘Pirates of the Caribbean’, is hotly contested and at the center of a four-week civil trial in Fairfax, Virginia.
The night ended with the tip of Depp’s middle finger being severed, and profanity written by him in blood on the wall of the house. Depp denied assaulting Heard in any way and said her finger was cut off when Heard threw a bottle of vodka at him; Heard said she took sleeping pills after the attack and was not awake when his finger was cut.
The depiction of the sexual assault left Heard fighting for her composure as she described it to jurors. She said Depp got angry as soon as she arrived in Australia, about a month after the couple married in February 2015.
He accused her of sleeping with his movie co-stars, including Billy Bob Thornton and Eddie Redmayne, with whom she just shot the movie “Danish Girl” – accusations she denies.
The fight escalated to the point where he threw her on a ping-pong table, smashing it, Heard testified. He tore off her nightgown and Heard said she was naked and exposed when she was assaulted.
“I couldn’t get up. I thought he was hitting me,” she said. “I could just feel that pressure on my pubic bone.”
She thought he was attacking her with his fists, but then realized that she was being attacked with a bottle and realized that many bottles had broken during the fight.
“I looked around and saw a lot of broken glass. I just remember thinking, ‘Please God, please don’t break,'” she said.
Heard described eerie details after the attack, including seeing her shredded burgundy nightgown used to wrap a raw steak that had been discarded. She said that when Depp’s security team finally arrived to deal with her severed finger, Depp still tried to leave her indecent messages, but tried to write them while urinating on the wall.
Much of the trial’s testimony was a repeat of a civil action by Depp brought against a British newspaper. A judge there ruled against Depp in 2020, finding that Heard was in fact repeatedly assaulted by Depp. But the sexual assault allegations Heard raised on Thursday were not shown publicly at the UK trial.
Earlier in Thursday’s testimony, Heard said Depp surrounded himself with an entourage to protect him from the consequences of drug and alcohol use.
Heard told jurors about pictures she took of Depp from 2013 when he was unconscious. She said she took these pictures because Depp couldn’t remember what he did when he was drunk and denied what happened while he was unconscious.
“He won’t remember it, or he’ll deny it. There was no one to support me,” she said.
She also described an incident that happened on a plane trip from Boston to Los Angeles. According to Heard, Depp was jealous and
“He hates, really hates James Franco,” she said. She got up and left, but Depp followed her. At one point she said he slapped her. Then, she said, he kicked her and no one on board intervened on her behalf.
“I felt that boot on my back,” she said. “I fell on the ground. And no one said anything. Nobody did anything. You may have heard the battery drain. I just remember feeling so embarrassed.”
Depp, who testified earlier in the trial, described the incident differently. He denied drinking excessively before boarding the plane and said that Heard started an argument and chased after him until he felt compelled to hide in a bathroom.
And the jury saw a message Depp sent his friend Paul Bettany shortly after the robbery in which he said he would “decently quit drinking” because the incident turned out to be “ugly”. He also texted Bettany saying, “I have to admit I was too reckless to spray my rage on someone I love for some petty reason.”
Heard testified that she was repeatedly physically and sexually assaulted by Depp, often while he was drunk or high on drugs. Depp has denied ever hitting her, but Heard’s lawyers say his denials lack credibility in part because he doesn’t remember what he did while unconscious.
Depp said Heard greatly exaggerated his drinking and tolerance of alcohol. Depp’s friends, family and staff have supported his statement.
But Heard says that’s part of the problem: she says Depp has a team around him to clean up for him when he’s sick and to allow him to go on his business trips without acknowledging the consequences of drinking alcohol.
Testimony will resume at 9 a.m. ET on Monday, May 16 at the Fairfax County Circuit Court.