Amber Heard looks on during Johnny Depp's defamation trial against her on Wednesday
(Picture: POOL/AFP via Getty Images)Johnny Depp and Amber Heard were urged to “heal” and “move on” by a former neighbour during emotional testimony at their $50 million defamation hearing.
Isaac Baruch tearfully described how the pair’s long-running legal dispute had blighted lives as the jury in Fairfax, Virginia, listened to a second day of evidence on Wednesday. “It’s (been) six years... Am I angry anymore? What I am is tired. I want this all to end. For her to go heal, him to go heal,” said the artist, a long-term friend of Depp.
The actor, 58, is suing his ex-wife for libel over a 2018 article she wrote in The Washington Post in which she discussed her experiences of domestic abuse. Depp’s lawyers claim it falsely implied Heard, 35, was physically and sexually abused by him when they were married.
Mr Baruch lived in an apartment owned by the actor at the Eastern Columbia Building in Los Angeles between 2013 and 2016.
Giving evidence on Wednesday, he claimed Heard’s “fake narrative” had gone “out the door and around the world”. Becoming upset, he added: “For Johnny, his family has been completely wrecked by all of this stuff. It’s not right what she did and what happened for so many people to get affected from this.”
Lawyers for Heard claim that, although her article is protected by the first amendment of the US constitution, there is also evidence that Depp abused her physically on multiple occasions.
Mr Baruch was asked about his encounters with Ms Heard in the days after an incident on May 21, 2016, in which she claimed Depp “got violent”.
He said the following day on May 22, which happened to be his birthday, he saw Ms Heard again in a well-lit place but saw no signs of injury, despite “inspecting” her face.
“She puts her head out, and I’m looking... I inspect her face... I’m looking at the whole thing and I don’t see anything... I don’t see a cut, a bruise, swelling, redness. It’s just Amber’s face.”
Depp’s lawyers say the allegations of abuse are false and the actress had been “preparing to give the performance of a lifetime” during the proceedings.
The court also heard evidence that Depp once called Heard a “c**t” and referred to her “rotting corpse” in a text to Mr Baruch. Heard’s lawyer, Elaine Bredehoft, asked him: “Do you recall Mr Depp ever telling you that he hoped that Amber Heard’s rotting corpse is decomposing in the f****** trunk of a Honda Civic?”
Mr Baruch pointed to a monitor on which the message was displayed and said: “Yeah. Well, I say yeah — I’m seeing it here, so obviously, yeah, it was said.”
The case is being brought in Virginia rather than in California, where the actors live, because The Washington Post’s online editions are published using servers in Fairfax County.
