It was the fifth day of Johnny Depp’s $50m defamation trial against ex-wife Amber Heard, and for the first time the Hollywood star took the stand to give evidence.
Ms Heard is being sued by Mr Depp for implying in a 2018 Washington Post column that he abused her, which Mr Depp said damaged his career even though she did not directly name him.
She, in turn, has filed a $100m counterclaim against Mr Depp for nuisance and immunity from the actor’s allegations.
Here are five things that we learned from the trial on Tuesday.
Johnny Depp is ‘not embarrassed’ to be facing his ex-wife in a highly public court case
“I can’t say that I’m embarrassed because I know that I’m doing the right thing,” Mr Depp said after taking the witness stand.
The actor told the court that he did feel exposed by the litigation, insisting that despite his successful career, he had always been a private person who had tried to shield his two children from “hordes of paparazzi’ and that he did not want them to see their parents as “novelties”.
Actor compared himself to both Cinderella and Quasimodo
During his testimony, Mr Depp told the court that since Heard’s abuse allegations were first made against him six years ago he had been through “trying times”.
“It’s strange when you’re Cinderella, so to speak, and in 0.6 seconds you’re Quasimodo,” he said.
Depp quipped that Heard ‘Could definitely kill me’ when they met for the first time in audition
The actor had agreed to meet with the actress who was under consideration for the role of Chenault in The Rum Diary, based on a novel by the late author Hunter S Thompson.
“I took one look at her and thought ‘Yep that’s the Chenault that Hunter wants, that’s the one. I just thought ‘Yep she could definitely kill me, that’s who Hunter wants.’”
And he went on to explain the things that he first liked about her.
“She was sweet as pie, pleasant, intelligent, literate, very good taste,” he said but added that he felt he cold teach her to use “stillness” in her acting.
Depp claims that Heard’s characterisation of his substance abuse was ‘grossly embellished’
The star said from the witness stand that his drug and alcohol use had been “an easy target” for the actress to hit after their marriage ultimately broke down. But Mr Depp said he didn’t use for the sake of partying, but rather to dull the pain of past trauma.
“It has never been for the party effect, it has been trying to numb the things inside that have, that can plague someone who has experienced trauma,” he told the court in Virginia.
“The characterisation of my substance, of my quote-unquote substance abuse that has been delivered by Ms Heard is grossly embellished, and I am sorry to say, but a lot of it is just plainly false.
“I think that it was easy, it was an easy target for her to hit. Because once you have trusted somebody for a certain amount of years and you have told them all the secrets of your life, that information can then, of course, be used against you.”
Depp describes his first kiss with Heard on set of The Rum Diary
The actor said that he and Ms Heard had locked lips in a scene in which she walked in on him in the shower.
And he described how the pair continued the passion back in his trailer later in the day.
“I think there was something in the kiss in the shower that was real,” he added.
“So that day after work, Ms Heard had come to my trailer and I was sitting there listening to old blues stuff and we had a glass of wine and we kissed.
“At that point my trailer was the only trailer in the parking lot, she had the mind to stay in the trailer for a while with me but I did not think that was a good idea on any level as there were nine Teamsters outside waiting to move the trailer.”
