Amber Heard's lawyers claimed on Tuesday that the actress lived hell during her marriage to Johnny Depp, turned according to them into a “monster” by drugs and alcohol, with attacks of “anger” that ended in verbal, physical and sexual assaults.
The former couple accuse each other of defamation in a trial in Fairfax, in the state of Virginia, United States, in a column published in the Washington Post in 2018, in which Heard described herself as a “victim of domestic violence” harassed by society after having denounced Depp two years earlier.
Heard “loved the side of Johnny that we see in movies, charismatic, charming, generous, he is the man he fell in love with,” his lawyer Elaine Bredehoft told the members of the jury. “But unfortunately the monster appeared and this monster appeared when he drank or took drugs,” he added, mentioning cocktails of alcohol, medicines, cocaine, ecstasy and hallucinogenic mushrooms.
Depp had “a huge anger” in him that transformed him into a “demon” and “it was during these episodes of anger that he verbally, psychologically, physically and sexually attacked Heard,” Bredehoft explained. He recounted several scenes of violence, especially in March 2015 in Australia, where Depp was shooting the fifth episode of “Pirates of the Caribbean”.
The actress never parted with her makeup kit to hide the bruises on her face, said the lawyer, who plans to show the jury “shocking photos” of Heard with “bruises, split lips, torn hair.”
Bredehoft recounted many of the attacks reported by his client, including some that had not been made public until now, such as when Depp allegedly sexually assaulted her with a bottle on one occasion, something later denied in a statement by a spokesman for the actor.
In her opinion piece, the 35-year-old actress does not name Depp, 58, from whom she split in 2017 after two years of marriage.
After the column was published in the newspaper, Depp, who denies hitting him, filed a defamation lawsuit against Heard, claiming $50 million in damages. The actress, in turn, filed a defamation lawsuit asking for 100 million dollars.
Depp acknowledges having used drugs and alcohol, but insists that he never hit a woman. He is backed by his former partners Vanessa Paradis and Winona Ryder.
A year ago, the actor lost his trial against The Sun newspaper for calling him a “wife batterer”. A British court found that “the vast majority of the alleged attacks with Amber Heard had been proven”.
The first session of the trial, which is expected to last six weeks and is televised, began on Tuesday with the presence of Depp and Heard.
The actress' lawyers have argued that the accusations referred to in the article are completely true and that she also has the right to express her views, based on the First Amendment to the United States Constitution and which protects freedom of expression.
“For years, all Mr. Depp has wanted is to humiliate Amber, pursue her, ruin her career,” Rottenborn argued, calling Depp “an ex-husband obsessed with revenge.”
Meanwhile, Depp's defense alleges the false accusations of domestic violence that Heard had a “devastating” effect on the movie star's career.
“This case demonstrates how words can be devastating when they are false and spoken in public,” said the actor's lawyer, Benjamin Chew, at the opening of the trial. “Amber Heard changed Depp's life and reputation forever and you'll hear him tell what a terrible impact this had on his life,” he said, addressing the jury.
Depp's sister took the stand and described her troubled childhood at the hands of her abusive mother.
Christi Dembrowski, 61, was called by Depp's team to testify Tuesday and told the jury about her upbringing in Lexington, Kentucky, with her parents Betty Sue Palmer and John Christopher Depp.
“My father was a kind, patient, loving and gentle man. Our mother was quite the opposite, very nervous, very nervous, anxious, angry,” she said, adding that her parents were “two completely different personalities.”
Depp would sometimes look at the ground while his sister spoke. He seemed to be deeply moved when his older sister told about her childhood.
“We were running and hiding,” he recalled when he saw his mother beating his father. “He was beating us. He threw things away.” When asked if Depp ever hit his mother back when she assaulted him, Dembrowski said no.
“As I grew older, both Johnny and I decided that once we left, once we had our own home, we were never going to repeat, ever, anything similar in any way to our childhood. We were going to do it differently,” Dembrowski said.
Betty “softened” as she grew older, Dembrowski said. He died at age 81 in May 2016, just days before Heard filed for divorce from Depp. Depp and Heard, who met making the 2011 film “The Rum Diary”, broke up in May 2016, when she filed for a domestic violence restraining order against him, accusing the actor of abusing her. Depp denied the allegations and the former couple settled their divorce out of court in August 2016.
(With information from AFP)
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