Johnny Depp’s legal team called a string of witnesses to the stand in his defamation trial on Monday in a renewed attempt to portray the Hollywood A-lister as the real victim of his tumultuous relationship with Amber Heard, alleging that he was physically assaulted, “canceled,” and deprived of a $22.5 million payday.
Heard and Depp returned to a courtroom in Fairfax County, Virginia, for the fourth week of Depp’s $50 million defamation trial. He has accused Heard of destroying his career and painting him as an abuser when she penned a 2018 Washington Post op-ed that did not name him but labeled herself a domestic violence survivor. Heard had sought a restraining order against Depp two years earlier.
Depp’s talent agent Jack Whigham testified via video that, months before the op-ed, he had wrapped up negotiations for Depp to star in the sixth installation of Pirates of the Caribbean for $22.5 million. It was set to be a hefty haul both in absolute and relative terms, he said, indicating that Depp was paid a combined $31.5 million for three films he had in the works around the same time: City of Lies, Murder on the Orient Express and Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald.
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Whigham alleged that after the op-ed was published, Disney abruptly ditched Depp from Pirates, a contention made by at least one Depp witness previously, and a key claim in the larger case.
“With respect to Johnny, it was catastrophic,” Whigham said. “.... After the op-ed it was impossible to get him a studio film, which is what we normally would have been focused on.”
His testimony followed evidence from one of Depp’s bodyguards, who described Heard as the aggressor in fights that seemed to escalate after they returned from a turbulent trip to Australia in 2015.
“I wouldn’t say nightly [fights], but every other night, several times a week,” Travis McGivern said, adding that there was “lots of name-calling, lots of f-bombs”—generally from “Miss Heard directing her feelings toward Mr. Depp.”
He alleged he saw Heard throw a Red Bull can at Depp’s back once, prompting him to place himself between the couple. “Mr. Depp was giving as good as he got at that point,” McGivern said. “He was angry and agitated. At one point, Miss Heard threw something else, either a purse or some sort of bag or something that she had up there. I was able to knock it away so it didn’t hit him. At one point, she [did] spit at him.”
Perhaps most explosively, McGivern said he witnessed Heard punch Depp in the face another time, leaving Depp with a “look of shock.” (Heard has previously appeared to admit to having struck Depp on a recording that surfaced in 2020, in which she implied she hit Depp out of both provocation and self defense.)
“My job is to ensure the safety and well-being of my clients, and I felt like I hadn’t done that,” McGivern testified.
Depp’s team also called a Hollywood lawyer and an online search expert who testified, respectively, about the perceived impact the op-ed had on Depp’s reputation in Hollywood, and his popularity more generally among the public.
The op-ed “created a cancel situation, if you will,” Tinseltown lawyer Richard Marks claimed, suggesting that studios didn’t want to hire actors who “quote-unquote had been canceled.”
Under cross-examination, Heard’s team argued that Depp’s reputation and popularity had already been waning before the op-ed. In particular, they cited the U.K. newspaper The Sun publishing an article earlier in 2018 branding Depp a “wife-beater.”
Depp filed a lawsuit over that story in the U.K., and lost, with a judge finding there was “overwhelming evidence” he had physically assaulted Heard and left her in fear for her life. Heard’s lawyer Elaine Bredehoft suggested on Monday that Depp’s unsuccessful libel lawsuit against The Sun, and the surrounding publicity, were the reason for his career taking a dive.
Heard is expected to take the stand sometime this week, just days after she ditched her crisis PR team. Her new crisis communications point-man, David Shane, declined to comment to The Daily Beast. But a source close to Heard confirmed she now has Shane Communications on retainer in an attempt to combat the negative headlines that have vexed Heard’s camp since the opening of the trial.
In addition to traditional media coverage, Heard has also been met with an onslaught of Depp fanatics both IRL and on platforms like TikTok who purport to poke holes in her story.
It won’t be the first time Shane has bumped heads with Depp in the court of public opinion. In 2017, he ran PR for The Management Group (TMG), a well-known Hollywood business management firm, when it initiated foreclosure proceedings on a $5 million loan Depp allegedly hadn’t paid back. The legal action followed a $25 million suit Depp filed against TMG, alleging self-dealing by his handlers.
