Cross examination of Amber Heard in her ongoing civil defamation battle with Johnny Depp quickly got ugly on Tuesday when his lawyers went after the actress over the allegation that Depp sexually assaulted her with a liquor bottle in 2015.
“You were not scared of him at all were you?” Camille Vasquez, one of Depp’s lawyers, prodded Heard on her fourth day on the stand in Fairfax County, Virginia, court.
Seemingly frazzled but defiant, Heard turned to the jury and insisted that she was in fact terrified of her then-husband, who she has said penetrated her vagina with the bottle during an incident in Australia.
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“This is a man who tried to kill me, of course, it’s scary. He’s also my husband,” Heard said, later adding: “Johnny is not an accurate historian of what happened during that period of time, I’ll guarantee you that.”
The exchange almost immediately prompted an objection from Heard’s legal team before Vasquez asked for a lengthy sidebar to privately speak to the judge.
Although both Depp and Heard have pointed to the 2015 fight as one of the more harrowing instances of alleged abuse during their disastrous relationship, the celebrities have offered jurors vastly different versions of what actually transpired.
One thing the pair, who had moved to Australia temporarily while Depp filmed Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales, do agree on: that a March 2015 argument got violent.
But while Depp says Heard hurled a bottle of vodka at him that severed his fingertip, the actress says her ex-husband physically abused her before repeatedly penetrating her with a bottle after a three-day bender.
“The next thing I remember, I was bent over backwards on the bar,” Heard previously said on the stand. “I thought he was punching me, I felt this pressure on my pubic bone...I remember looking around the room. I remember looking at all the broken bottles, broken glass, and I remember just not wanting to move because I didn’t know if it was broken or if the bottle he had inside of me was broken. I couldn’t feel it, I didn’t feel pain, I didn’t feel anything...I just remember thinking, ‘Please God, please I hope it’s not broken.’”
Vasquez’s grilling of Heard extended beyond the 2015 incident on Tuesday, where the lawyer also questioned the actress about her past with drugs and alcohol, her other allegations of abuse by Depp, and even accused her of editing a photograph that shows her with a red mark on her face.
The attorney also claimed that Depp got Heard her role in Aquaman, a comment that prompted Heard to shoot back: “No, Ms. Vasquez, I got that role by auditioning.”
Depp has sued Heard for $50 million, alleging that she “devastated” his career when she described herself as a domestic violence survivor in a 2018 Washington Post op-ed, two years after she sought a restraining order against him. Heard’s legal team has noted that she did not name Depp nor discuss her marriage in the piece.
On Tuesday, Heard said she intentionally did not discuss her relationship with Depp in the piece. “It is not about him,” Heard added.
But jurors must decide whether she either knew what she wrote was false, or else had reckless disregard for the truth.
Jurors are also hearing claims from Heard’s counter-lawsuit for $100 million, which claims defamation after at least one of Depp’s ex-attorneys suggested her account of being abused was a “hoax.”
At one point Tuesday, Vasquez, the attorney for Depp, attempted to demonstrate that it was not her client’s fault Heard lost work—despite her claims his camp went after her professionally during the break-up.
“There’s been an ongoing smear campaign, an orchestrated smear campaign,” Heard said.
“An ongoing negative publicity campaign? You have no evidence of that,” Vasquez shot back, to which Heard responded: “Just look me up, you'll see.”
On Tuesday, however, Depp’s lawyer wasted trying to poke holes in what might be the most horrific allegation of sexual violence leveled by the actress.
“You’re the one who assaulted someone with a bottle in Australia, Ms. Heard,” Vasquez pressed.
“I didn’t assault Johnny in Australia. I didn’t assault Johnny ever,” Heard responded while looking at the jury.
Vasquez continued to grill Heard about the sequence of events that night, even though the actress insisted she did not remember the precise timeline of what happened. Heard said she “never claimed that I can remember the exact sequence,” and that this was a “multi-day assault that took place over three horrible days.”
For his part, Depp has claimed that during the argument, a “possessed” Heard walked up to him and “reached and grabbed the bottle of vodka and then just kind of stood back and hurled it at me” before grabbing another bottle that “made contact” with him.
"I didn’t feel the pain at first—what I felt was heat and something dripping down my hand. I looked down and realized that the tip of my finger had been severed,” Depp previously said on the stand. “I was looking directly at my bones sticking out and the meaty portion… blood was pouring out.”
Depp, who called himself a domestic violence survivor in court, admitted that he called his doctor and told him, “You might want to come over, I’ve cut my finger off here.” He also admitted to writing messages about Heard on walls and mirrors with his blood and paint—and that he lied to doctors at the emergency room about how he sustained the injury to protect his ex-wife.
Audio previously played in court may have dented Depp’s account, as he could be heard apparently referring to cutting his own finger off.
In a series of short questions, Vasquez asked Heard why, even though she said she sustained cuts to her forearms and feet and “had a bruise across your jaw,” the actress did not seek medical treatment after the fight herself.
“And there is not a single medical record reflecting treatment for any of those injuries, is there Ms. Heard?” Vasquez inquired.
“I didn’t seek treatment,” Heard agreed.
Vasquez also took the time during cross-examination to question Heard about the days leading up to her decision to file for divorce and a temporary restraining order. The stretch included a fight with Depp that was followed by a call to police and, later, an appearance from James Franco.
The questions came after Heard said her decision to file the order stemmed from a desire to have a “good night’s sleep” and “change my locks.”
When asked if she “felt comfortable having James Franco over the evening of May 22, 2016,” Heard responded she did not remember seeing the actor, who she has claimed Depp hated. Vasquez then played elevator surveillance footage of Heard and Franco at her home on that date, one night after the LAPD were called when Depp allegedly threw a cell phone at her, leaving a red mark on her face.
Later, during redirect examination by her own lawyer, Heard insisted that Franco was just “my friend and he lived next door.”
“After seeing my face, he put his head on my shoulder,” Heard said about the video, adding that Franco also “touched the side of my face.”
