Lawyers for actress Amber Heard resumed their questioning of Johnny Depp in a Virginia court on Thursday, focusing on his drug and alcohol use and text messages the actor sent to a friend in an attempt to kill his then-wife and to shame.
Heard’s attorneys are trying to derail Depp’s defamation lawsuit against her over a 2018 op-ed in The Washington Post that Depp alleges indirectly defamed him and ruined his lucrative acting career. In the article, Heard described himself as a “public figure representing domestic violence.”
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Depp has testified that Heard was the aggressor in the relationship and that despite her allegations, he never physically or sexually abused her. Heard’s attorneys argue that Depp can’t deny what happened because he used to drink so much and use drugs that he doesn’t remember what he did.
Heard’s attorney, J. Benjamin Rottenborn, focused on a text message exchange between Depp and actor Paul Bettany in 2013, in which Depp said, “Let’s burn Amber!!!”.
Bettany replied, “Having thought about it, I don’t think we should burn Amber…”
Depp wrote: “Let’s drown them before we burn them! I’ll go to her burned body afterwards to make sure she’s dead.”.
Depp previously apologized to the jury for the vulgar language in the lyrics, saying that “in the heat of the pain I felt, I went to dark places”.
Rottenborn also focused on another text from Depp to Bettany in 2014, in which he mentioned whisky, pills and powder.
The text messages were sent during a period when Depp said he had quit drinking. And they were sent around the time of a private flight from Boston to Los Angeles, on which Heard said Depp was drunk and assaulted her.
Rottenborn conveyed text messages that Depp sent to Bettany, saying he was “drinking all night before I picked Amber up last Sunday to fly to LA…It was ugly man…no food for days…powder…half a bottle.” Whisky, a thousand red bulls and vodkas, pills, 2 bottles of champagne on the plane…”.
Depp previously testified that he took two pills of oxycodone, an opiate he admits was addicted to at the time, locked himself in the plane’s bathroom and fell asleep to avoid being bothered by Heard. He had also stated that he only had one glass of champagne on the plane.
To cast further doubt on Depp’s claims that he was not a problem drinker at the time, Heard’s attorney showed jurors a text message Depp had sent to musician Patti Smith about a 2014 visit to New York, in which he said of an argument with Heard, getting drunk and being “very disappointed in myself”.
Actress Amber Heard speaks with her legal team in the courtroom of Fairfax County Circuit Court on April 21, 2022 in Fairfax, Virginia. (The Associated Press)Depp testified in Fairfax County Circuit Court on Tuesday afternoon. The actor spent much of that time describing the couple’s volatile relationship and denying that he ever abused Heard.
He said Heard often lashed out at him, arguing that his film career suffered after she wrote and published her article in The Washington Post..
Heard didn’t mention Depp by name in the article, but Depp’s attorneys say it’s a clear indication of allegations Heard made when he filed for a restraining order against the actor in 2016.
Depp said the allegations and the article contributed to an unjustly tarnished reputation that made him a Hollywood outcast and cost him his role in the lucrative Pirates of the Caribbean film franchise..
As interrogations began Wednesday afternoon, Rottenborn pointed to evidence that Disney made that decision months before the article was published.
Heard’s attorneys argue that his article was truthful and did not defame him. They also said that Depp ruined his own reputation with his bad behavior.
In Tuesday’s stand, Depp called the drug abuse allegations “grotesquely embellished” while admitting he uses a lot of drugs. He said his drug use began at age 11, when he secretly took his mother’s “nerve pills.”