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Tribune News Service
Tribune News Service
Entertainment
Peter Sblendorio

Johnny Depp likely to testify Tuesday in defamation trial against Amber Heard

Johnny Depp is expected to testify Tuesday during his $50 million defamation trial against ex-wife Amber Heard, which began last week in Virginia.

Depp sued Heard in early 2019 over an op-ed published in the Washington Post in which she wrote she’d become “a public figure representing domestic abuse.”

Heard didn’t name Depp in that December 2018 essay, but had previously accused the Oscar-nominated actor of physically and verbally abusing her during their marriage, which he denied.

Testimonies during the high-profile case so far have included the therapist Laurel Anderson, who counted Depp and Heard among her clients in 2015. She described the Hollywood stars’ relationship as one of “mutual abuse” last week.

Depp’s team asserts Heard fabricated the abuse allegations to destroy his reputation, while Heard’s team claims Depp damaged his own career.

“This man’s poor choices have brought him to this point,” Heard’s lawyer J. Benjamin Rottenborn said during his opening statement last week. “Stop blaming other people for your own self-created problems.”

The defamation case, which is expected to last for weeks, was allowed to be held in Fairfax, Virginia, because the Washington Post has servers there.

During his upcoming testimony, Depp is expected to discuss a 2016 incident in which he found poop inside his bed, according to TMZ. Depp previously accused Heard or one of her friends of leaving the poop there, while Heard has said it was one of their Yorkshire terrier dogs.

The 58-year-old Depp previously lost a libel lawsuit against the publisher of British tabloid The Sun over an article that painted him as a “wife beater,” with a United Kingdom judge ruling in 2020 that the claims were “substantially true.”

Depp was later rejected in his efforts to appeal the ruling.

He and Heard, 35, were married from 2015-17.

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