The World Opinion

Tag: johnny depp amber heard defamation case

  • Jury sees photos of Amber Heard’s swollen face after struggle with Johnny Depp

    Jurors in Johnny Depp’s libel trial in opposition to his ex-wife, Amber Heard, noticed footage Monday of her with purple marks and swelling on her face after their ultimate struggle sooner than their divorce, and heard testimony about her experience in overlaying up bruises with make-up.

    Heard concluded her direct testimony in a Virginia court docket with a 3rd day that used to be targeted at the ultimate months of her marriage to Depp. His attorneys started their cross-examination later within the afternoon.

    The trial is now in its 5th week, and jurors have observed more than one footage of Heard all the way through the trial that purport to file the abuse she mentioned she gained right through her dating with Depp.

    A number of of the footage proven Monday, regardless that, had now not in the past been observed via the jury and confirmed redness and swelling a lot more obviously than previous footage.

    Heard mentioned the marks got here when Depp threw a telephone at her face.

    The war of words in Might 2016 induced Heard to record for divorce two days later. A couple of days after that, she received a short lived restraining order after a courthouse listening to, and used to be extensively photographed leaving the courthouse with a transparent purple mark on her proper cheek.

    The general struggle has been a key level within the couple’s ongoing dispute. Depp is suing Heard in Fairfax County Circuit Court docket for libel over a December 2018 op-ed she wrote in The Washington Submit describing herself as “a public determine representing home abuse.” His attorneys say he used to be defamed via the object despite the fact that it by no means discussed his identify.

    Depp says he by no means struck Heard and that she’s concocting claims she used to be abused. Previous within the trial, jurors heard from cops who answered to emergency calls right through that ultimate struggle who mentioned Heard’s face appeared purple from crying however that they noticed no visual bruises. Witnesses additionally testified that they didn’t see bruises on Heard’s face within the rapid days after the struggle.

    Heard, in her testimony Monday, mentioned she didn’t cooperate with officials who answered to the couple’s penthouse, and mentioned her face-to-face interactions with officials had been very restricted.

    She additionally mentioned her make-up regimen, the use of a colour correction wheel that she known as her “bruise equipment” to hide up marks on her face. She mentioned she discovered over time to make use of inexperienced sun shades within the first day of a bruise to hide up redness, and turn extra to orange sun shades because the bruise became blue and red.

    “I’m now not going to stroll round L.A. with bruises on my face,” she mentioned.

    On cross-examination, Depp attorney Camille Vasquez wondered Heard about more than one footage of her that seemed to not display bruises even they had been taken inside of days of alleged abuse incidents. Heard mentioned she used make-up to hide bruises and ice to scale back swelling.

    “You must see what it gave the look of beneath the make-up,” she mentioned.

    Vasquez additionally wondered Heard about her $7 million divorce agreement from Depp. Heard pledged to donate the total quantity to charity however has up to now simplest donated a portion of it. She testified she’s been not able to satisfy her pledge but as a result of Depp sued her for $50 million. However on cross-examination she said that she had gained the total $7 million from Depp months sooner than he filed the lawsuit.

    In her direct testimony, Heard testified she didn’t need to publicly reveal Depp as an abuser in her courtroom lawsuits, however needed to cross to the courthouse to offer testimony to acquire the restraining order, and she or he used to be greatly surprised when she left the courthouse surrounded via paparazzi.

    “I simply sought after to switch my locks,” she mentioned about why she went to courtroom to get the restraining order. “I simply sought after to get a excellent night time’s sleep.”

    All the way through Monday’s testimony, Heard additionally strongly denied an accusation from Depp that she left human fecal subject within the couple’s mattress after a struggle. Heard mentioned it used to be the couple’s teacup Yorkshire terrier that messed the mattress and that it had a historical past of bowel issues ever because it had by accident ingested Depp’s marijuana.

    “Completely now not,” she mentioned concerning the alleged poop prank. “I don’t assume that’s humorous. I don’t know what grown girl does. I used to be now not in a pranking temper.”

    Heard mentioned, regardless that, that Depp changed into obsessive about the concept anyone had pooped in his mattress. She mentioned it used to be all he sought after to discuss right through that ultimate struggle Might 21, 2016, despite the fact that Depp’s mom had simply died and the couple hadn’t spoken in a month.

    The poop allegation is certainly one of a number of that Depp’s on-line enthusiasts have specifically latched onto of their social media reviews of Heard.

    Heard additionally talked concerning the op-ed piece itself, pronouncing staffers with the American Civil Liberties Union — for whom she had began paintings as an envoy — wrote the primary draft. She mentioned she used to be satisfied to lend her voice to the talk over home violence, and wasn’t meaning to reference Depp.

    “It’s now not about Johnny,” she mentioned. “The one one that concept it used to be about Johnny used to be Johnny. It used to be about me, and my lifestyles after Johnny.”

    Heard concluded her testimony via pronouncing that accusations she receives every day from Depp supporters that she’s mendacity concerning the abuse are “torture.”

    “I need to transfer on with my lifestyles,” she mentioned. “I need Johnny to transport on. I need him to go away me by myself.”

  • Johnny Depp testifies Amber Heard attacked him, says he by no means hit again

    Actor Johnny Depp scoffed on the perception all over courtroom testimony Wednesday that his consistent quarrels with ex-wife Amber Heard would ever advised him to hit her, and as a substitute portrayed Heard as an abusive spouse who threw bottles at him, faked home violence and changed into so risky that Depp would retreat into the toilet to cover.

    “Violence isn’t essential,” Depp stated from the stand all over his libel lawsuit towards Heard, his 2nd day of testimony. “Why would you hit anyone to lead them to trust you?”

    Heard has accused Depp of bodily and sexually assaulting her on a couple of events sooner than and all over their transient marriage. Depp sued after Heard, who may be an actor, made an oblique reference to these accusations in an op-ed piece she wrote for The Washington Put up.

    Depp started to deal with Heard’s accusations intimately Wednesday. Heard has stated the primary time she used to be assaulted used to be when Depp slapped her in 2013 after she made amusing of a tattoo he had — person who used to mention “Winona Without end” when he used to be courting the actress Winona Ryder that he altered to “Wino Without end” when they broke up.

    “It didn’t occur,” he stated of the alleged attack. “Why would I take such nice offense to anyone making amusing of a tattoo on my frame? That allegation by no means made any sense to me.”

    Later, he addressed an alleged attack on a non-public airplane flight in 2014 from Boston to Los Angeles. Heard has stated Depp changed into blackout intoxicated and assaulted her at the airplane trip.

    Depp testified he took two oxycodone tablets — an opiate to which he admits he used to be addicted on the time — and locked himself within the airplane rest room and fell asleep to steer clear of her badgering.

    Depp testified he drank just a glass of Champagne as he boarded the airplane. However in keeping with proof presented at a identical trial in England the place Depp sued a British tabloid — a lawsuit he misplaced — Depp texted his buddy, actor Paul Bettany, and referenced ingesting part a bottle of whiskey, “1000 Purple Bull vodkas” and two bottles of Champagne sooner than the flight.

    Depp additionally mentioned a violent argument in 2015 — in a while when they had been married — in Australia that resulted within the tip of his heart finger being bring to an end. He stated Heard used to be irate that Depp’s attorneys had requested her to signal a post-nuptial settlement. He stated she threw two vodka bottles at him, the second one of which exploded the place he had positioned his hand on a basement bar, severing the finger to the purpose the place bone used to be uncovered.

    “I don’t know what a frightened breakdown looks like, however that’s almost certainly the nearest I’ve ever been,” he stated. Depp stated he started to jot down at the partitions in his personal blood to recount lies through which he had stuck Heard.

    Depp instructed medical institution medical doctors he had injured himself, and contemporaneous textual content messages presented as proof confer with Depp injuring himself. Depp testified he lied about the reason for the harm to give protection to her. In opening statements, Heard’s attorneys stated the rules of physics don’t improve Depp’s tale and they’re going to introduce proof to end up that.

    Depp additionally gave a graphic description of a last struggle because the couple drifted towards divorce, accusing Heard and her buddies of pretending that he used to be assaulting her. Quickly after, Heard sought a restraining order and used to be photographed with marks on her face.

    He testified that Heard used to be at the telephone with a pal shouting, “Prevent hitting me Johnny!” despite the fact that he used to be status nowhere close to her. The struggle had began as Depp stated he’d come to the conclusion after his mom’s dying that it used to be time for the couple to separate. The argument intensified, he stated, as Depp accused her of leaving human fecal subject on his facet of the mattress within the penthouse they’d shared. He stated Heard saved denying it, blaming it on their small canine, however he used to be satisfied she used to be mendacity.

    Depp met Heard at the 2011 movie The Rum Diary. The 2 married in 2015 and he or she filed for divorce a yr later. Taking the stand for a 2nd day, Depp stated issues started to switch in his marriage when he felt that he “used to be all of sudden simply flawed about the entirety” in Heard’s eyes. Violence would ceaselessly ensue, once in a while with a slap or a shove from Heard or his spouse throwing a tv far flung keep an eye on or a pitcher of wine in his face, Depp stated.

    “There have been instances once I would simply pass and lock myself in the toilet or a spot the place she couldn’t get to,” Depp stated. Depp stated he used medication and drank alcohol so that you could deal with Heard’s abuse and stated she used to be additionally a heavy drinker.

    Depp stated he at one level stopped ingesting to take a look at to save lots of the connection. However Depp stated Heard refused to abstain. Depp sued Heard after she wrote a 2018 op-ed piece in The Washington Put up through which she referred to herself as a “public determine representing home abuse.”

    She by no means discussed Depp by means of identify, however Depp and his attorneys stated it used to be a transparent connection with accusations Heard made in 2016 when the couple divorced and he or she sought a restraining order towards him.

    Depp stated the accusations and the object contributed to an unfairly ruined recognition that made him a Hollywood pariah and value him his function within the profitable “Pirates of the Caribbean” film franchise. Heard’s attorneys say the object is correct and doesn’t defame him. They are saying Depp’s ruined recognition is because of his personal dangerous habits, together with drug and alcohol abuse.

  • Johnny Depp and Amber Heard to stand off in defamation trial

    The actor Johnny Depp may now not persuade a pass judgement on in London that he used to be blameless of allegations that he had abused his former spouse, the actress Amber Heard, however in a tribulation beginning Monday, the actor will take his defamation criticism to a jury in Virginia.

    The U.S. trial facilities on a lawsuit Mr. Depp filed towards Ms. Heard, who wrote an op-ed in The Washington Submit in 2018, after the couple divorced, announcing she had turn into a “public determine representing home abuse.”

    The piece didn’t point out Mr. Depp by way of title, however the actor has asserted in court docket papers that it obviously referred to their dating, and that his recognition and profession had been “devastated” because of this.

    Right through 3 years of criminal sparring in Virginia, Mr. Depp, 58, and Ms. Heard, 35, have shared pages of lurid main points from their various accounts in their marriage. Ms. Heard’s descriptions of “unstable and violent” episodes with Mr. Depp during their dating incorporated his slapping her, head-butting her, throwing her to the bottom, and pulling out clumps of her hair, consistent with court docket papers.

    In his lawsuit, filed in March 2019, Mr. Depp denied that he used to be a home abuser and mentioned Ms. Heard’s accusations had been an “elaborate hoax” supposed to spice up her public personality — one who succeeded in making her a “darling of the #MeToo motion.” Mr. Depp has mentioned Ms. Heard have been the offender of abuse, accusing her in court docket papers of punching, kicking him and throwing items, together with a vodka bottle that he mentioned shattered at the countertop and severed the top of one in every of his palms.

    “Mr. Depp brings this defamation motion to transparent his title,” the actor’s lawsuit mentioned.

    Ms. Heard mentioned in court docket papers that she hasn’t ever attacked Mr. Depp excluding in self-defense or in protection of her more youthful sister, and that Mr. Depp severed the top of his finger when he smashed a telephone towards the wall right through a violent outburst. “I’ve by no means bodily abused somebody,” she wrote. “I do know what that does to other people.”

    The trial in Fairfax County Circuit Court docket is predicted to ultimate about six weeks and can start with jury variety. The lawsuits will probably be televised, all however making certain that they’re going to turn into a public spectacle. Each events are anticipated to testify. As well as, Ms. Heard’s listing of doable witnesses contains a number of celebrities — amongst them Elon Musk and James Franco — and the proof the 2 aspects intend to position ahead contains textual content messages between the couple, clinical data and surveillance photos from Los Angeles, the place they lived in combination.

    (Ms. Heard exchanged texts with Mr. Musk about her marriage that had been used as proof within the British case, and he or she mentioned in that trial that Mr. Franco noticed the bruises on her face after an altercation this is in dispute.)

    There also are weighty criminal questions in play as jurors will probably be requested to study, now not best Mr. Depp’s declare, but in addition problems raised in a countersuit Ms. Heard filed in 2020. It accused Mr. Depp of defaming her via his former attorney, who gave statements to the media announcing that Ms. Heard’s abuse claims had been a hoax.

    The trial is among the maximum top profile examples of defamation instances that experience arisen from the #MeToo generation, and legal professionals across the nation are following it intently.

    Jamie R. Abrams, a regulation professor on the College of Louisville Brandeis Faculty of Regulation who has written about those instances, mentioned that is one in every of a bunch by which the litigation in the long run turns into a tribulation over the reality of what came about, as legal professionals on either side search to turn out that their consumer may now not have dedicated defamation in the event that they had been talking truthfully.

    “I believe legislators, litigators, and students are all gazing this situation and its parallels to peer the place the regulation settles after this type of duration of turbulence,” she mentioned.

    Some other key query is how the British trial will think about. A pass judgement on in London present in 2020 that there used to be “overwhelming proof” that Mr. Depp had assaulted Ms. Heard many times right through their marriage, writing that Mr. Depp had put the actress “in worry of her existence.”

    Attorneys for Ms. Heard sought to persuade the pass judgement on in Virginia to include her British counterpart’s findings, arguing that the problem on the core of each instances used to be the similar: whether or not Mr. Depp had abused Ms. Heard. Pass judgement on Penney S. Azcarate declined to take action, writing in her choice that Ms. Heard used to be now not the defendant within the British case — it used to be a British newspaper that known as Mr. Depp a “spouse beater” — and Mr. Depp didn’t have get entry to to a jury trial there.

    Judges steadily exclude earlier trials reminiscent of this one from the proof a jury is permitted to imagine or even prohibit point out of such background so the jury might not be unfairly swayed, Lee Berlik, a defamation attorney in Virginia, mentioned. However Ms. Heard’s legal professionals can argue that sides of it are related to her case and due to this fact will have to be shared with the jury.

    “Naturally, Amber Heard goes to wish to do the whole thing she will be able to to make the jury acutely aware of that as a result of Johnny Depp misplaced,” Mr. Berlik mentioned, regarding the London libel case. “Conversely, Johnny Depp will wish to do the whole thing he can to verify it isn’t discussed.”

    Attorneys for Mr. Depp and Ms. Heard declined to remark at the specifics of the way the British case could be treated on the American trial.

    The previous couple met when Ms. Heard used to be solid as Mr. Depp’s love pastime within the 2011 movie “The Rum Diary” and had been married in 2015. The following 12 months, a court docket in California granted Ms. Heard a short lived home violence restraining order towards Mr. Depp after she alleged “emotional, verbal and bodily abuse” in a petition to the court docket, detailing a up to date incident by which she mentioned Mr. Depp violently shoved her to the ground and threw a champagne bottle on the wall after her thirtieth celebration, and every other by which she mentioned he threw a cellular phone at her, hitting her within the face.

    In court docket papers, Mr. Depp has denied Ms. Heard’s model of occasions, announcing she punched him within the face many times after he used to be past due for her birthday dinner and accusing her of faking a bruise on her face to acquire the restraining order, which she in the long run withdrew. (Ms. Heard brushed aside her petition for a long run restraining order as a part of their divorce settlement, her legal professionals wrote in court docket papers.)

    After the couple divorced, The Washington Submit printed Ms. Heard’s op-ed, however the newspaper has now not been named as a defendant within the case. On-line, the op-ed used to be titled, “I spoke up towards sexual violence — and confronted our tradition’s wrath.”

    “A film I used to be hooked up to recast my function,” the op-ed learn. “I had simply shot a two-year marketing campaign because the face of a world type logo, and the corporate dropped me. Questions arose as as to whether I’d have the ability to stay my function of Mera within the motion pictures ‘Justice League’ and ‘Aquaman.’”

    Regardless that it catalogs the wear and tear she mentioned she suffered by way of going public, the op-ed didn’t element her allegations of the abuse she says she suffered by the hands of Mr. Depp.

    The op-ed known Ms. Heard as an envoy on girls’s rights on the American Civil Liberties Union, and he or she mentioned in court docket papers that the A.C.L.U. — whose government director, Anthony Romero, could also be indexed as a possible witness within the trial — instructed that Ms. Heard write the piece and submitted it to the newspaper.

    Mr. Depp claims within the lawsuit that when the op-ed used to be printed, the wear and tear to his profession and recognition used to be “swift and serious.” Days after, Disney showed that Mr. Depp would now not be returning to one in every of his maximum distinguished movie roles as Captain Jack Sparrow in a conceivable “Pirates of the Caribbean” reboot, consistent with his lawsuit.

    “He used to be denied a chance to reprise that function instantly at the heels of Ms. Heard’s false and defamatory op-ed,” the lawsuit mentioned.