Amber Heard was accused of calling Johnny Depp an “old fat man” with “no style” during their volatile marriage, as the former couple traded blows at the start of their $50 million defamation trial.
The Aquaman actress is accused of libelling Depp in a 2018 op-ed for the Washington Post when she wrote about domestic violence, but she insists her freedom of speech is protected by the first amendment in the US Constitution.
Lawyers for Heard, 35, say Depp is an “obsessed ex-husband hell-bent on revenge” and she intends to bring evidence that she suffered physical and sexual abuse in their troubled marriage.
In response, the Pirates of the Caribbean star, 58, says Heard’s allegations are false and she was the real abuser, claiming she will “give the performance of a lifetime” during the blockbuster libel trial.
Depp’s older sister, Christi Dembrowski, was the first witness to give evidence, telling the court in Fairfax County, Virginia how she had witnessed Heard insulting her brother “multiple times”.
“She called him an old fat man”, she said, recounting a jibe about his physical appearance, and spoke about another incident which “really stayed with me” when Depp had been approached by fashion brand Dior.
“Johnny told Amber that I had just had a meeting with Dior and they were interested in him”, she said.
“Her reaction to that was she was in disbelief and sort of disgust because she said ‘Dior, why would Dior want to do business with you? They are about class and they are about style and you don’t have style’.”
Ms Dembrowski added: “It was insulting. Taking away that one moment, that insult is there.”
She told the court about their childhood, saying their mother had a habit of “screaming” at their father, she gave insulting nicknames to her children, and used physical violence against them.
She said Depp was branded “one eye” by his mother because of a lazy eye condition as a child, and she said her brother did not react to the abuse but “wanted to get away from it”.
Ms Dembrowski, who has worked as Depp’s assistant and manager during his Hollywood career, said she would often book an extra hotel room when Heard and Depp travelled together.
“It wasn’t unusual for them to have an argument”, she said. “I saw a repeat happening in life. When we were kids in arguments and fighting would start to happen, our first thing to do was go and hide and get away from it. I recognised what felt to me a repeat pattern from his childhood. I wanted to make sure there was a place he could do just that.”
In her 2018 article at the heart of the case, titled “I spoke up against sexual violence – and faced our culture’s wrath”, Heard said she was a survivor of domestic abuse but did not name Depp specifically.
Her lawyer, Benjamin Rottenborn, told jurors: “You are being asked to decide a very simple question: were the words used by Amber in the 2018 opinion piece that was published in The Washington Post protected free speech under the first amendment or not?
“The answer is very clearly yes.”
The trial is due to hear similar evidence to the 2020 High Court case in London, when Depp lost a libel battle with The Sun newspaper after being branded a “wife-beater”.
Heard says Depp’s abuse was triggered by drugs and alcohol binges, and she describes a “three-day hostage situation” in Australia while Depp was filming Pirates of the Caribbean 5 which ended with the star suffering a severed fingertip and daubing blood on the walls of their rented home.
“The evidence for Mr Depp isn’t pretty”, said Mr Rottenborn. “You’re going to see who the real Johnny Depp is behind the fame, behind the pirate costumes.”
Camille Vasquez, representing Depp, said the actor would “go to his grave knowing that whatever he does there will always be people who believe he abused a woman”.
“Ms Heard took on the role of a lifetime, she couldn’t back down,” she said. “She has been living and breathing this lie for years now.
“She is preparing to give the performance of a lifetime in this trial.”
Actors James Franco and Paul Bettany as well as Tesla founder Elon Musk are expected to appear as witnesses in the trial.
