Amber Heard's attorneys have filed a memorandum with the court, asking the judge to either set aside the verdict, dismiss the complaint, or order a new trial
Amber Heard and Johnny Depp. Photo-Illustration: The Cut. Photos: Getty Images After two days of deliberation, a jury has returned its verdict in the defamation trial between Amber Heard and Johnny Depp: Heard defamed Depp three times in her 2018 Washington Post op-ed, while attorney Adam Waldman — acting on Depp’s behalf — defamed her once in his 2020 Daily Mail article.
Heard accused Depp of physical and emotional abuse spanning years. According to Heard, Depp routinely became explosively angry and physically violent throughout their relationship, particularly when substances were involved. Her filings framed the iPhone incident as a repeat event, alleging that Depp subjected her to “excessive emotional, verbal and physical abuse” as well as “angry, hostile, humiliating and threatening assaults.
Depp filed a libel lawsuit in the U.K. — but not against Heard. In 2018, Depp sued News Group Newspapers, Ltd., after one of its titles — The Sun — referred to him as a “wife beater.” As the BBC notes, U.K. law obligates the party accused of committing defamation to prove their claims, which arguably should’ve made the case easier for Depp to win. The trial once again turned the spotlight on 14 instances of abuse Heard says occurred between 2013 and 2016.
Mostly, her argument highlighted political solutions; reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act and shoring up Title IX protections on campus, rather than rolling them back. But three months later, in early 2019, Depp filed a $50 million defamation suit over the article, arguing that her claims were “demonstrably false” and, further, “brought new damage to Mr. Depp’s reputation and career.
On April 9, just before the trial began, Heard posted a message to her fans on Instagram, saying that she would be “offline for the next several weeks” to focus on the trial. In her post, Heard defended her op-ed, noting, “I never named [Depp], rather I wrote about the price women pay for speaking out against men in power. I continue to pay that price,” she wrote.
Testimony from Depp’s doctor, Dr. David Kipper, was played for the court. Kipper addressed Depp’s drug and alcohol use — he recalled helping the actor detox after he allegedly became dependent on opioids after a dental procedure — and was asked to testify about a March 2015 incident during which Depp’s finger was severely injured. Depp is claiming that the injury was the result of Heard throwing a vodka bottle at him, while Heard’s team maintains that the injury was self-inflicted.
“She was attentive, she was loving, she was smart, she was kind, she was funny, she was understanding, and we had many things in common,” he said. But he said there were small tells that something was off in their relationship, even early on. The actor said Heard scolded him when he arrived home one day and took his boots off, reprimanding him because that was her job, according to Depp.
Accusing Heard of flying off the handle over the possibility of a pre-nup and a post-nup, the actor graphically described the incident in which he severed his finger. According to Depp, Heard hurled two vodka bottles during an explosive argument, one of which sliced off the tip of his middle finger. “I was looking directly at the bones sticking out,” he said. “Blood was just pouring out … I don’t know what a nervous breakdown feels like, but that’s probably the closest that I’ve ever been.
Depp’s cross-examination hammered on the actor’s use of drugs and alcohol. Cross-examination picked up steam on April 21 as Heard’s attorney — J. Benjamin Rottenborn — embarked on an exacting and at times painful six hours of questioning. Rottenborn began with the texts Depp sent his friend Paul Bettany in 2013 about drowning and burning Heard.
Rottenborn underscored inconsistencies in Depp’s account of his sobriety in the 18 months before he arrived in Australia in February 2015, surfacing messages to his assistants seemingly requesting cocaine and ecstasy. He addressed the finger incident, too, questioning why Depp’s ring and pointer fingers sustained no injuries while the middle was so badly cut.
A psychologist hired by Depp’s team diagnosed Heard with “histrionic personality disorder.” Depp’s defense is working to frame Heard as vindictive and overly dramatic with serious mental-health problems. On April 26, the defense called Dr. Shannon Curry, a clinical psychologist who had evaluated Heard during two six-hour meetings in December 2021, to the stand.
On Wednesday, Depp’s team played a series of prerecorded depositions from witnesses supporting their case. The first three focused on the night of May 21, 2016, when police were called after an altercation in Depp and Heard’s L.A. penthouse. Bodycam and CCTV footage from the evening were played, and three LAPD officers who responded to the call testified that they didn’t see marks on Heard’s face but weren’t able to examine her closely.
Heard also reportedly fired her crisis PR team on April 28, with sources claiming she was displeased with recent headlines surrounding the case. Also on May 2, the court viewed prerecorded testimony from Heard’s former personal nurse, Erin Falati, who specializes in addiction. She testified to “discord” in the marriage and said Heard’s anxiety had spiked around the time she met Depp in Australia in 2015. Toward the end of that year, Falati recalled seeing Heard’s lip bleeding after an argument with Depp. She also spoke about photos Heard had texted her late one night. “I’m not an expert,” Falati told the jury.
Hughes also detailed a particularly violent moment previously mentioned by Heard’s attorneys, when Depp allegedly penetrated Heard with a bottle in a fit of rage when the duo were in Australia during filming of the fifth Pirates of the Caribbean movie. She also testified, “[Depp] pushed Heard, he shoved her, he slapped her with the front of his hand and the back of his hand, he choked her, he slammed her into the wall, he pushed her, and when she fell down he kicked her in the back.
The criticism and the accusations escalated to blowout fights where, Heard said, Depp would become destructive. “He would throw a glass, or turn over a table, or hit the wall, then he would hit the wall really close to my head, screaming at me,” she said. “Then he would disappear, get sober, tell me he was done drinking,” she continued, “and he’d go back to this wonderful … unbelievably nice, sensitive, kind, warm, generous, interesting, funny man that I loved. He would make me feel so loved.
“I wanted to want to leave him, and I wanted him to get better,” she recalled, through tears. When he sobered up, Heard remembered, “He would say, ‘You saved my life, baby girl, you saved my life.’” Heard testified to Depp’s detox on his island — that he was often incoherent, hallucinating, and angry, and that she found herself in a position she shouldn’t have been in, simply because he asked her to help him through it. As their relationship progressed, she said he would blow up, usually over her perceived infidelities and always while he was under the influence, and then he would leave. “He never had to deal with my face the next day, he would just go,” she said.
“I honestly don’t remember if I threw anything in his direction, I don’t think I did, I just remember him having me by the nightgown, throwing me around,” she said. Eventually, she continued, she found herself backed into the bar area as Depp hurled bottles and cans at her. “At one point my nightgown came completely off, I was naked, and I’m slipping on this tile.
The jury viewed photos of the injuries — her bruised face, busted lip, and patches on her scalp where Depp allegedly ripped out her hair — Heard said she incurred during that fight. “I thought, This is how I die,” she told the jury. “He’s going to kill me now, he’s going to kill me and he won’t even have realized it.”
Heard said that after the phone incident, “I knew I had to leave him. I knew I wouldn’t survive if I didn’t.” She filed for divorce and got a temporary domestic-violence restraining order against Depp in May 2016. “The violence was now normal and not the exception,” she testified. The jury viewed photos of Heard with a bruise on the day she showed up to court to file the restraining order. Depp has previously said she’d painted the bruise on with makeup.
The jury saw excerpts from the couple’s “love journal” — along with more photos of Heard. These included images of her facial bruising from May 2016, which Vasquez said Heard had “edited” and images from a photo shoot Heard did in the Bahamas sometime after Depp had allegedly assaulted her on December 15, 2015. No bruises are visible in those photos, though Heard said they were taken about two weeks later.
On May 18, the court viewed a deposition of Heard’s friend Rocky Pennington, who confirmed elements of Heard’s account. Pennington said she saw texts in which Depp referred to himself as “the monster” and witnessed Depp confront the woman he perceived to be hitting on Heard in Hicksville. She also said she saw the wreckage of their trailer the next day.
Heard’s former makeup artist explained how she covered Heard’s bruises. May 18 also saw Mélanie Inglessis, Heard’s former friend and makeup artist, answer questions in a prerecorded video deposition. Inglessis said that on December 16, 2015, she helped get Heard ready for the James Corden appearance: “1,000 percent, without a doubt,” she had injuries on her face, Inglessis recalled.
The second half of the day focused on testimony from Kathryn Arnold, a producer and entertainment-industry consultant, who said Depp’s career went into a downward spiral long before the op-ed published. Depp, she explained, is “an expensive actor,” earning “between $20 and $25 million for each movie plus back-end.” He also fell into a habit of showing up late to set to a degree that it affected production timelines.
Kate Moss denied the rumor that Depp once threw her down a flight of stairs. On May 25, Depp’s team called Kate Moss, who dated the actor from 1994 to 1998. During her own testimony, Heard cited a rumor that Depp had pushed Moss down the stairs during a vacation in Jamaica at some point in their relationship.
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