Amber Heard is expected to return to the witness stand on Monday (16 May) for a third day of testimony in the high-profile defamation trial against Johnny Depp.
Mr Depp is suing Ms Heard for $50m (£40.8m) over an op-ed she wrote in The Washington Post describing herself as “a public figure representing domestic abuse”.
While the Pirates of the Carribbean actor isn’t explicitly 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 alleges that the op-ed adversely impacted his Hollywood career, making it difficult for him to land the kinds of movie roles he once did.
The high-profile trial at Fairfax County Circuit Court resumes on Monday after a one-week hiatus to accommodate a judicial conference. Jurors have heard four weeks of testimony, including allegations of domestic and sexual abuse by Mr Depp and Ms Heard respectively, so far.
The Aquaman actor, who has spent two days on the witness stand, told jurors she was physically and sexually abused on multiple occasions before and during her brief marriage to Mr Depp, which lasted from 2015-16.
The court has heard a harrowing account of an alleged sexual assault on Ms Heard during a brutal and bloody altercation in Australia in 2015.
Mr Depp, who has already testified but is expected to return to the stand as a witness for Ms Heard this week, has denied ever hitting Ms Heard.
This week, the jury will also hear from Whitney Henriquez, Ms Heard’s sister, and actor Ellen Barkin, with whom Mr Depp had a brief relationship in the 1990s.
Before the break, both Mr Depp and Ms Heard issued duelling statements sharing confidence in their respective legal teams’ standing over the trial.
A representative for Mr Depp said: “The upcoming cross-examination [of Ms Heard] from Mr Depp’s team will be most telling, and will certainly highlight the many fallacies Ms Heard has now attempted to pass off as fact throughout her convoluted testimony.”
A spokesperson for Ms Heard told The Independent that “as evidenced by the statement just released, Mr Depp’s defamation claim is falling apart so rapidly that his counsel are turning from prosecutor to persecutor”.
Ms Heard has filed a $100m counterclaim against Mr Depp for nuisance and immunity from his allegations.
Follow live updates from the trial here.
Additional reporting by agencies
