Amber Heard took the stand to describe her whirlwind romance with Johnny Depp before rampant drug use and alleged domestic abuse soured it.
Heard tearfully told the court that in May 2013 she and Depp were on vacation at a trailer park in Hicksville, California near Joshua Tree where he performed ‘cavity search’ on her, looking for cocaine after he accused her of flirting with another woman.
‘I remember in the trailer he’s accusing me of lying about it, I’m trying to calm him down. He turned all that rage onto the trailer itself and started smashing things. He picked up something on the table and threw it into the glass cabinet,’ Heard testified.
‘He’s screaming at me and eventually I go back into the bedroom area, he comes into the bedroom area. He was looking for something. I went into the bathroom and as I come out he asked me where it is, and how long I’d been hiding it. I was like what you talking about.
‘(He said) you know what I’m f**king talking about, be honest with me. Where are you hiding it.’
Heard became emotional as she described what happened next.
She said: ‘He starts patting me down, he ripped my dress. He’s grabbing my breasts, he’s touching my thighs, he rips my underwear off and then he proceeds to do a cavity search. He said he was looking for his cocaine, his coke.
Heard cried as she said: ‘He just shoved his fingers inside me. I just stood there staring at the stupid light, I didn’t know what to do. He twisted his fingers around. I didn’t stay stop or anything.’
Amber Heard took the stand to describe her whirlwind romance with Johnny Depp before rampant drug use and alleged domestic abuse soured it
Heard sobs as she described the alleged abuse she suffered at the hands of her ex-husband Johnny Depp
Heard tearfully told the court that in May 2013 she and Depp were on vacation at a trailer park in Hicksville, California near Joshua Tree where he performed ‘cavity search,’ looking cocaine after he accused her of flirting with another woman
Depp is suing Heard for $50million, claiming she defamed him and ruined his career after a 2018 Washington Post article in which she described herself as a domestic abuse survivor
‘I fell head over heels in love with this man,’ Heard testified under oath with her blonde locks curled and swept to the side
The argument started because earlier in the night they were sitting around a campfire and a woman next to Heard had taken MDMA and put her head on Heard’s shoulder. Heard had taken mushrooms.
Heard said: ‘Johnny gets really activated, really upset. She thought he was kidding. We all did.’
The woman said, ‘Hey man what are you doing. She giggled and leaned into me more. I knew instantly it wasn’t a joke but she didn’t. He says it again to her, you think you’re touching my f**king girl? That’s my f**king girl. He gets louder and louder.
‘She kind of started to cry but threw up her hand and Johnny grabbed her wrist and twisted it and pulled her into him. (He said) do you know how many pounds of pressure it takes to break a human wrist. He held her and she looked frozen. She’s crying.’
Heard stepped in and talked Depp down and they went back to their trailer.
She said, ‘Johnny tells me I hadn’t been honest with him about my relationship with this woman.’
Heard told the court that the month of March 2013 was ‘really crazy’ and was a ‘revolving door of accusations’ she was having affairs.
She called it an ‘almost never-ending fight with breaks in it.’
She said: ‘What kept me in it was waiting for the other shoe to drop. I kept waiting for him to get to the point where it’s not supportable and he’s ready to get sober as (when that happened) it was pure joy.’
Heard told the court that she called Depp’s sister Christi who came and helped get him out the house. But as they were driving in their car things took a dark turn.
‘He has the window down. At some point he starts howling out the window and (he grabbed) Boo his dog, a slightly chunkier teacup Yorkie. He grabs Boo and holds Boo out the window of the moving car. He’s howling like an animal while holding the dog out the window.
‘Everyone in the car just froze. No one did anything. I too was torn as to what I should do. I didn’t want to do anything to cause him to drop the dog. It’s this eerie moment where he’s howling…I have a memory of everyone not really reacting to him. No one did anything. I eventually pulled his arms back into the vehicle and got the dog back on the seat.’
‘We had this whirlwind romance in these beautiful places, falling in love, not able to show it because the world didn’t know about the split between he and his former partner. As a woman, that is troubling. He swore to me they hadn’t shared a bed for a year but were protecting the kids by not making it known to the press,’ Heard said
Heard began her testimony seated in front of Depp. ‘This is the most painful and difficult thing I’ve gone through. For sure,’ she said
Describing the first time Depp allegedly hit her, Heard said, ‘I will never forget it. It changed my life.’
‘I was sitting on the couch having a normal conversation. He was drinking. I think he was using cocaine because there was a jar – a jar – of cocaine on the table. There’s music playing, smoking cigarettes and I ask him about the tattoo he has on his arm.’
Depp had a tattoo on his arm that read ‘Wino Forever’ for his ex girlfriend Winona Ryder.
Depp had a tattoo on his arm that read ‘Wino Forever’ for his ex girlfriend Winona Ryder. Heard said she laughed at it and he slapped her
‘To me it looked like black marks, I didn’t know what it said,’ Heard said. ‘I said what does it say. He said it says Wino and I thought he was joking and I laughed. He slapped me across the face and I laughed. I laughed because I didn’t know what else to do. I thought this must be a joke. Because I didn’t know what was going on.’
Heard said she stared at Depp and laughed, thinking he was going to laugh and say it was all a joke.
‘You think it’s funny bi**h, you think you’re a funny bi**h?’ Depp said, according to Heard before slapping her again.
‘He slapped me again. It wasn’t a joke anymore. I stopped laughing. I didn’t know what else to do. He slapped me for no reason.’
‘Second slap I know he’s not kidding,’ Heard said. ‘It wasn’t a joke anymore. I stopped laughing. I didn’t know what else to do. He slapped me for no reason.’
She said Depp slapped her one more time, hard.
‘I lose my balance. I’m all of a sudden realizing the worst thing has happened to me that could possibly happen to you. I wish so much he was joking. It didn’t physically hurt me.’
Heard described the moments immediately after she was slapped.
‘I was sitting there on the carpet, looking at this dirty carpet….I just sat there thinking how much time do I have….because god did he just me? No, I didn’t want to leave him, to have the man I was in love with leave. I knew it was wrong and I had to leave him and it broke my heard because I didn’t want to leave him.
‘I wish I could sit here and say I walked out of that house and drew a line and stood up for myself but looking at the dirty carpet trying to will myself to get up and walk out the door. I stood up and looked at him in the eye and looking at him and before I know it he starts crying. I’d never seen an adult man cry.’
She said Depp then began apologizing.
‘He’s touching my knees, saying I’m sorry baby, I thought I put the f**ker away, I thought I put the monster away. He’s on his knees.
‘I just remember thinking he was crying, he seemed so sorry but I couldn’t forgive him because it means it will happen again. I got up in my car and walked to my car and didn’t say anything’
‘I was heartbroken. I turned the key and drove home.’
In July 2013 Depp, Heard and his two children, Lily-Rose and Jack, went to his private island in the Bahamas so they could take one last trip on his yacht before he sold it to author JK Rowling
Heard told the court that Depp was drinking but ‘didn’t want to tell his kids so he was hiding it from them, putting it in coffee cups and drinking it.’ Depp and his children are pictured in 2013
Heard said that in 2012 he began accusing her of infidelity and physical violence became more regular.
‘He started accusing me, then the punching the walls next to my head – a constant at the time in 2012 when he was drinking. That became him accusing me of cheating. I’d defend myself, I’d say that’s crazy.
‘They would escalate to the point he’d push me or shove me down and I’d get back up, I’d look him in the eye and he’d ask if I wanted to go again.
‘He hit me in the face when I denied having an affair with my ex partner. He said he had proof. I turned to look at him and said you just hit me.’
Heard said she was walking on egg shells and recalled one instance where she was photographed too close to a man for Depp.
‘Destroying property and screaming at me – that was the worst. I felt I had to defend myself so he didn’t think these things were true.
She said nothing she did could calm Depp down.
‘I’d walk away and that would make it worse. He’d grab me by my hair or grab me by my arm. He’d smash things very close to me. Then he’d hit me.
‘It started with slapping then repetitive slaps, multiple times in a row.
‘Eventually I’d push him off of me or try to push his hands off me.’
In July 2013 Depp, Heard and his two children, Lily-Rose and Jack, went to his private island in the Bahamas so they could take one last trip on his yacht before he sold it to author JK Rowling.
Heard told the court that Depp was drinking but ‘didn’t want to tell his kids so he was hiding it from them, putting it in coffee cups and drinking it.’
Depp’s behavior became erratic and he jumped off the boat in a way that looked ‘a little scary.’ Heard said that Lily-Rose, who was around 14 at the time, began to have a ‘panic attack’ and was crying.
Depp asked his daughter to leave the bedroom and began to accuse Heard of ‘telling on him and calling him a drunk in front of his kids.’
Heard said: ‘I was trying to tell him I was trying to protect you. He was accusing me of making them aware he was drinking again and he slams me up against the side wall of the bedroom by my neck and holds me there for a second and tells me he could f**king kill me and that I was an embarrassment, this whole thing was a joke, I made him feel sick.
‘I’ll never forget. I’m very, very much in love with this whole family now and he’s saying I’m embarrassing to him. That stuck more than I could kill you. The names he was calling me. It hurt, it hurt my feelings.’
Immediately afterwards, Heard and the children got off the boat and went to the island where they called a helicopter to leave.
Heard said: ‘We take off. I’m holding Lily-Rose, she’s crying. Jack ended up not coming with us at the last minute. I remember being really torn about leaving, I felt bad about leaving. I also felt I’d done something wrong. He was mad at me, I wasn’t sure what I’d done.’
The court was shown rambling texts that Depp sent to Heard while she was with Lily-Rose including telling her ‘don’t call again’ and calling her a ‘lesbian camp counselor.’
The court in Johnny Depp ‘s defamation trial against Amber Heard was shown a photo from March 2013 which included a glass of whiskey on a table and lines of cocaine
The court was shown evidence of Johnny Depp passed out after a drug and alcohol binge. Amber Heard snapped the photo
The couple met on the set of the 2011 movie The Rum Diary and Heard spoke of their budding romance.
‘I fell head over heels in love with this man,’ Heard testified under oath with her blonde locks curled and swept to the side.
‘I felt like this man knew me and saw me in a way no-one else had. I felt he understood me, where I came from. I felt when I was around Johnny I felt like the most beautiful person in the whole world. I felt like a million dollars.’
She told how the couple had to be under the radar and date in secret because he was splitting from ex Vanessa Paradis.
Depp and Heard met on the set of the 2011 movie The Rum Diary, turning up on the red carpet together for its London premiere
‘We had this whirlwind romance in these beautiful places, falling in love, not able to show it because the world didn’t know about the split between he and his former partner. As a woman, that is troubling. He swore to me they hadn’t shared a bed for a year but were protecting the kids by not making it known to the press.
‘We had to be really under the radar. Johnny pointed out the world would blame me and call me a homewrecker. We were secretly dating. It was beautiful.’
On the set of The Rum Diary the couple shared a kissing scene, where Heard said it went beyond acting.
‘We had a kissing scene and it felt real. He really kissed me using his tongue,’ she said. ‘We just had this, it was a friendship, flirtatious thing. I felt chemistry.
‘I felt this other thing that went beyond the pail of my job for sure. Johnny clearly felt that way about me but at the same time we were both in relationships and it’s a job and it was intimidating. I remember feeling intimidated and nervous about that. We went our separate ways and I didn’t hear from him for a long time.
The couple did not see each other after filming and reconnected years later. They began dating in October 2011.
‘There was no contact until Johnny called me on the phone one day, invited me to his home in Beverly Hills. It was out of the blue.’
She said Depp sent her several gifts.
‘He sent me a beautiful dress I wore in the movie with a beautiful handwritten note that said happy wrapping. He sent me a few gorgeous, expensive what I can only assume are collectible books. When I was away filming on a different job, he did send me some guitars.’
She said the chemistry that they had was ‘hard to explain’ and described it as ‘an electricity to the room.’
Heard said the relationship got deeper as they went on a press tour in 2011 for The Rum Diary.
‘Then we fell in love. We went on this press tour and it was a beautiful and strange time. We’re flying from one city to the next, Europe, New York, Los Angeles and we’re traveling around talking about this movie and we were falling in love.
‘In London he had me sat next to him at dinner and we ended up spending the night together in my hotel room. For the rest of the press tour it was on.’
‘That feeling, he’d lavish gifts and expressions of love, say how he never meet a woman like me.’
‘He took this foil off this bottle and put it on my ring finger – I’d been with him a few weeks – it felt very intense. We weren’t’ doing normal life stuff, we were hiding in these places around the world. He had so many homes, my home at the time. It was a bubble, in this little bubble of secrecy and it felt like this warm glow, music, books we loved, poetry we both loved by heart. It felt like a dream. It felt like absolute magic.’
She said the couple wre in a ‘bubble’ and he’s stay with her for days in a row, ‘painting me, reading poetry to me, just talking.’
‘Then he’d disappear and there would be no way to get in contact with him,’ she said. He disappeared at one point and then came back and said he was dealing with some health issue and would I join him in the Bahamas.’
‘That’s when I learned he had an island. I was in Spain, I rerouted my trip so I could land in Miami instead of LA so I could meet him on the island.
‘I noticed he was drinking Becks and tea. Lots of tea. Like lots of tea. I didn’t think anything of it, I thought the man really, really loves tea. We had this beautiful less than a week in the Bahamas.’
The couple met on the set of the 2011 movie The Rum Diary and she spoke of their budding romance. On the set of The Rum Diary the couple shared a kissing scene, where Heard said it went beyond acting. ‘We had a kissing scene and it felt real. He really kissed me using his tongue,’ she said. ‘We just had this, it was a friendship, flirtatious thing. I felt chemistry’
Depp sued his ex-wife Amber Heard for libel in Fairfax County Circuit Court after she wrote an op-ed piece in The Washington Post in 2018 referring to herself as a ‘public figure representing domestic abuse’
Heard began her testimony seated in front of Depp.
‘I am here because my ex-husband is suing me for an op-ed I wrote,’ Heard said. ‘I struggle to find the words to describe how painful it is. This is horrible for me to sit here for weeks and relive everything, hear people that I knew some well, some not, my ex-husband with whom I shared a life speak, about our lives in the way that they have.
Amber Heard took a photo of a bruise on her arm in March 2013
‘This is the most painful and difficult thing I’ve gone through. For sure.’
The actress described humble beginnings being raised in a working class household in Texas. She recalled working at a children’s museums, soup kitchens and working with deaf children, and said she ‘loved it.’
‘I did a small job in Texas where I played a part in a movie. An actor I was playing opposite had an agent visiting from LA. She said she’d heard about me from another part I did.
‘No job was too small for me. I put myself out there. She said I heard about you and I’d love to meet you in LA if you’re ever out in LA. I said when can I come,’ Heard said.
‘I used all but $180 to get out there, I landed, I didn’t know anyone, I was 17. I went to every audition, every casting, every meeting that I could. I didn’t have a car because those were expensive so I took the bus. Before smart phones I had a guide in my bag and a change of tank tops. I went to about 10 auditions a day and changed clothes in the back of the bus I was taking. I hustled from one audition to the other.’
‘I got a part in one thing and eventually my roles became bigger. It’s been slow progression since then. Tiny parts in bigger movies or larger roles in movies no-one would see and I guess it’s kind of like that.’
The A-list trial in Virginia, which started on April 11 and is set to last another three weeks, has so far seen Depp claim he was the victim of domestic abuse in his four days of testimony.
The Pirates of the Caribbean star is suing Heard for $50million, claiming she defamed him and ruined his career after a 2018 Washington Post article in which she described herself as a ‘public figure representing domestic abuse’, without naming her ex-husband.
Heard is countersuing for $100million, and after three weeks of sitting silently in the courtroom during Depp’s testimony, she is on the stand and fought back today.
These photos were previously shown in court from May 2016 of Amber Heard with an apparently bruised cheek
Depp detailed the explosive fight he and Amber Heard had in March 2015 in Australia where the top of his finger was severed when Heard allegedly threw a bottle of vodka at him
Depp is fighting an uphill battle to salvage his reputation after Britain’s High Court ruled against him last year when he sued The Sun newspaper for calling him a ‘wife beater’.
After weeks of testimony, a judge concluded that the outlet’s 2018 article was ‘substantially true’ and that the father-of-two had attacked Heard a dozen times, causing her to fear for her life on three occasions.
The London court also heard a trove of shocking texts Depp had sent to Avengers star Bettany, vowing: ‘Lets burn Amber.’
‘Let’s drown her before we burn her !!!,’ he wrote in November 2013. ‘I will f**k her burnt corpse afterwards to make sure she’s dead.’
Sources close to Depp say he never contemplated settling or dropping the case and is desperate for a second bite of the cherry in Virginia where the London result will be kept from jurors.
Armed with a battery of highly-paid lawyers he’s confident of tipping the balance with additional evidence that didn’t feature in the ‘wife beater’ case.
DailyMail.com has led the world in revealing much of the material over the past two years, from explosive audio recordings to bombshell depositions and police videos.
The cache includes bodycam footage from LAPD officers who visited the ex-couple’s LA apartment on the night of the blowout 2016 fight.
Heard claims that her ex-husband assaulted her before smashing up their $1.5 million home – but his lawyers will argue the videos don’t show any trace of damage.