After testifying Monday afternoon that her Washington Post op-ed was about herself, not Johnny Depp, Amber Heard faced pointed cross-examination from Depp attorney Camille Vasquez that was aimed at shaking Heard’s credibility in the eyes of the jury.
“The only one who thought it was about Johnny is Johnny,” Heard said toward the end of her direct testimony, talking about the opinion piece that sparked Depp’s $50-million defamation suit and Heard’s $100-million defamation countersuit.
“It’s about me. It’s about what happened to me after Johnny. It’s about what happened to me after I escaped my marriage. It’s about me and my life and what I endured once I moved on and got a TRO and moved on with my life. It was about what happened to me after. The only one who made it about him, ironically, was Johnny.”
Her words came on her fourth day on the stand in a case that’s scheduled to run through May 27 before going to the jury.
Heard then testified about three remarks made by former Depp attorney Adam Waldman that are the heart of her defamation countersuit. In one, Waldman was quoted as referring to Heard’s “sexual violence hoax facts.” Heard talked about the pain that caused her to hear her allegations labeled as untrue.
“It’s torture. It’s torturous,” the “Aquaman” star said tearfully. “No one should have to do that. I want to move on with my life. I have a baby, I want to move on. I want Johnny to move on too. I want him to leave me alone.”
But in a quick about-face, cross-examination found Vasquez grilling an unemotional Heard about why Depp hadn’t made eye contact with her at all during the trial.
“You know exactly why Mr. Depp won’t look back at you,” Vasquez said, then played a tape in which Depp had vowed that after they divorced, “You will not see my eyes again.”
Moving past that dramatic tone-setter, Vasquez asked Heard about various claims she’d made in direct testimony about injuries she said she suffered at Depp’s hands.
Among Heard’s claims were that on separate occasions Depp broke her nose, split her lip, kneeled on her back and hit her in the face so many times she lost count. Heard also admitted that she couldn’t recall a time when Depp wasn’t wearing heavy rings on all his fingers.
Then Vasquez presented photo after photo of Heard, taken on the days after all of those alleged incidents. In them, Heard showed no signs of bruising, swelling or any injuries whatsoever.
The actor also said under cross-examination that she had no medical records of any of her injuries because she didn’t seek medical attention for any of them, even after she allegedly was raped with a liquor bottle that resulted in bleeding from her vagina.
Vasquez noted that Heard took a lot of photos of Depp sleeping, but had no photos of him consuming or even possessing cocaine.
Then Vasquez turned to Heard’s charitable donations, which the actor had spoken about publicly, as if she had donated the full amount of her divorce settlement up front, when in fact she pledged to donate the money over time.
Heard said she planned to make the donations over time because she was being paid the money over time and also because she would get a tax benefit from doing so.
Heard explained why she stopped Depp from giving money to the charities directly instead of giving her the money first. “I said if you want to pay the charities directly, pay the adjusted amount, or pay as per our agreement in the settlement, in the divorce.” Depp chose to do the latter, she said.
As for her own donations, Heard said, “I have not been able to fulfill those obligations yet.”
The trial, which is being held in Virginia and broadcast and streamed live by CourtTV, resumes Tuesday at 9 a.m. Eastern time.
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