WASHINGTON – Amber Heard testified on Thursday that her ex-husband Johnny Depp sexually assaulted her and threatened to "carve up" her face with a broken bottle during a heated argument one month after their 2015 marriage.
The 36-year-old Aquaman actress recounted multiple instances of alleged physical and sexual abuse during her second day on the witness stand in the defamation case filed against her by the Pirates of the Caribbean star.
The 58-year-old Depp brought the suit against Heard over an op-ed she wrote for The Washington Post in December 2018 in which she described herself as a "public figure representing domestic abuse."
Heard did not name Depp in the op-ed, but he sued her for implying he was a domestic abuser and is seeking US$50 million (RM218 million) in damages.
The Texas-born Heard countersued, asking for US$100 million and claiming she suffered "rampant physical violence and abuse" at his hands.
She recounted in harrowing detail an incident that occurred in March 2015 in Australia, where Depp was filming the fifth installment of the Pirates series.
Depp testified earlier in the trial that an "irate" Heard was the aggressor in the argument and severed the tip of one of his fingers by throwing a vodka bottle at him.
Heard provided a very different account on the witness stand on Thursday.
She said she confronted Depp about his drinking and he dared her to try to take a bottle from him.
"I get ahold of it," she said. "I slammed it down on the ground right in between us.
"That really set him off. It was like a light bulb switch went off."
She said Depp threw another bottle at her but "it missed thankfully." "Also cans, like soda cans, beer or soda cans, and they're coming at me one after the other."
"At some point he had a broken bottle up against my face, neck area, by my jawline and he told me he'd carve up my face," she said, adding that Depp was screaming at her that she had "ruined his life."
Breaking down in sobs, Heard said that Depp ripped off her nightgown and sexually assaulted her with a bottle.
"Johnny had the bottle inside of me and was shoving it inside of me over and over again," she said, while repeatedly threatening to kill her.
Heard said she managed to escape and when she came down from her bedroom the next morning she found that Depp had used blood from his finger, food and paint to write "incoherent" messages throughout the house – on mirrors, walls, lampshades and other surfaces.
She said she did not know how his fingertip was cut off.
'Feeling so embarrassed'
Heard also testified about another incident in which Depp allegedly slapped and kicked her on an airplane after accusing her of having an affair with James Franco, her co-star on The Adderall Diaries.
"He was mad at me for taking the job with James Franco," Heard said.
"He hated, hated James Franco and was already accusing me of kind of secretly having a thing with him in my past since we had done Pineapple Express together."
"He called me a slut," Heard said, recounting the incident that took place on a May 2014 flight.
She said Depp, who had been drinking, slapped her across the face at one point and kicked her in the back as she moved to another seat.
Members of Depp's security detail and his assistants were on the plane at the time, she said.
"No one said anything, no one did anything. It was like you could hear a pin drop on that plane," she said. "And I remember feeling so embarrassed."
Depp, during four days of testimony earlier, denied ever being physically abusive towards Heard and claimed she was the one who was frequently violent.
Depp's lawyers earlier put experts on the stand who testified that he has lost millions because of the abuse accusations, including a US$22.5-million payday for the sixth installment of the Pirates franchise.
Depp filed the defamation complaint in the United States after losing a separate libel case in London in November 2020 that he brought against The Sun for calling him a "wife-beater."
Depp, a three-time Oscar nominee, and Heard met in 2009 on the set of The Rum Diary and were married in February 2015. Their divorce was finalised two years later. – AFP, May 6, 2022
