Amber Heard could be heard admitting to hitting Johnny Depp on a recording played in court.
Ms Heard and Mr Depp argued about the physical altercation on the recording, during which she said she hit Mr Depp but she didn’t “deck” him. She also told Mr Depp to “grow up”, calling him a “baby”. The recording was played in court on Wednesday.
The defamation trial between Mr Depp and Ms Heard began on Monday 11 April in Fairfax, Virginia following Mr Depp’s lawsuit against his ex-wife in March 2019. Mr Depp is arguing that she defamed him in a December 2018 op-ed published in The Washington Post titled “I spoke up against sexual violence — and faced our culture’s wrath. That has to change”.
“You told me to do it. You told me ‘go do that’,” Ms Heard said on the recording.
“You punched me in the f***ing thing,” Mr Depp said.
“You figured it all out,” Ms Heard responded. “I didn’t punch you by the way.”
“I’m sorry that I didn’t hit you across the face in a proper slap,” she added. “I was hitting you, I was not punching you. You’re not punched.”
“Don’t tell me what it feels like to be punched,” Mr Depp said.
Ms Heard told Mr Depp “you know you’ve been in a lot of fights, been around a long time”.
“You didn’t get punched, you got hit,” she added.
“I’m sorry. I hit you like this, but I did not punch you. I did not f***ing deck you. I f***ing was hitting you. I don’t know what the motion of my actual hand was. But you’re fine. I did not hurt you,” Ms Heard said.
“What am I supposed to do? Do this? I’m not sitting here bitching about it, am I? You are – that’s the difference between me and you. You’re a f***ing baby,” she added.
As Mr Depp begins to respond, Ms Heard can be heard raising her voice, saying “you are such a baby, grow the f*** up, Johnny”.
Mr Depp asked her if she started a “physical fight”.
“I did start a physical fight,” Ms Heard said.
“Yeah, you did, so I had to get out of there,” Mr Depp responded.
“You did the right thing. The big thing. You know what – you’re admirable,” Ms Heard said in a tone described in court by Mr Depp as sarcastic.
A photo of Mr Depp was shown in court after he received what he called a “roundhouse punch” by Ms Heard. The photo was dated March 2015. Mr Depp said security guard Sean Bett took the picture.
In her 2018 op-ed, Ms Heard partly wrote that “like many women, I had been harassed and sexually assaulted by the time I was of college age. But I kept quiet — I did not expect filing complaints to bring justice. And I didn’t see myself as a victim”.
“Then two years ago, I became a public figure representing domestic abuse, and I felt the full force of our culture’s wrath for women who speak out,” she added at the time.
While Mr Depp isn’t named in the piece, his legal team argues that it contains a “clear implication that Mr Depp is a domestic abuser”, which they say is “categorically and demonstrably false”. Mr Depp is seeking damages of “not less than $50m”.
Ms Heard has filed a $100m counterclaim against Mr Depp for nuisance and immunity from his allegations.
