Amber Heard ends testimony, details op-ed centered in Johnny Depp case

Amber Heard wrapped up her testimony Tuesday after four days on the witness stand in the libel suit filed against her by her ex-husband, Johnny Depp.

Depp’s attorney CamilleVasquez on Tuesday afternoon ended her cross-examination of Heard, which was followed by the redirect questioning of Heard, lasting only a few minutes, as Depp’s lawyers objected to nearly every question that Heard’s lawyer, Elaine Bredehoft, tried to ask.

A portion of the cross-examination regarded a fight Heard had with Depp in Australia in March 2015. The actress previously testified that he sexually assaulted her with a liquor bottle during the fight, and he has testified that she severed the tip of his finger. Both have denied the other’s allegations.

“I just remember being aware that I was being assaulted by a bottle on the countertop,” Heard alleged. “This was a multi-day assault that took place over three horrible days.”

Amber Heard testifies in Johnny Depp libel lawsuit Tuesday, May 17, 2022.

Johnny Depp, Amber Heard libel trial:Everything that’s happened so far, including Heard on the stand

When asked why there was no evidence of injury from her sexual assault, she confirmed she “didn’t seek treatment.”

Vasquez said Heard didn’t seem to be scared of the “Pirates of the Caribbean” actor despite the alleged assault.

“This is a man who tried to kill me,” Heard testified in response. “Of course it’s scary. He’s also my husband.”

‘I wanted him to get help’:Amber Heard recalls photographing an unconscious Johnny Depp

Vasquez recounted several instances in which Heard wrote in a “love journal” about her relationship with Depp and text exchanges following the incident in Australia.

“I’m sorry I can get crazy. I’m sorry I hurt you. I think, like you, I can get wicked when I’m hurt, when I feel provoked, shattered and last night I was. I felt a little bit bewildered about you not coming home last night. I was heartbroken and angry after many attempts in vain on my part,” Heard said in one text to Depp. “You are the last person I ever meant to hurt. I love you. I am forever yours.”

Vasquez also questioned why Heard wrote a series of love notes to Depp in the months after she said she was assaulted. Heard has said she believed Depp had hit rock bottom after the Australia fight and was committed to sobriety. She has said most of the assaults occurred while Depp was under the influence of drugs or alcohol.

The actress was later questioned by her attorney about why she stated that Depp has been unable to look at her during their U.K. trial and during this trial. “He’s guilty. He knows he’s lying otherwise why can’t he look at me,” Heard testified. “I survived that man and I’m able to look at him.”

Johnny Depp’s lawyers call iO Tillet Wright to the stand

After Heard’s attorney redirected, Depp’s lawyers called to the stand iO Tillett Wright, who was friends with both Heard and Depp.

Wright, who worked as a New York Times journalist and photographer in 2011, testified he never witnessed Depp physically assault Heard. Depp’s lawyer asked Wright about the actor’s character and substance use.

“Johnny, when sober, was lovely and magical and very funny. Johnny, when sober, was incredibly lucid, imaginative and I felt a kindred connection with him,” Wright said. “Cocaine and alcohol would bring out an ugly side of him, misogynistic and cruel. When he would take any kind of psychedelic, he would become paranoid. When he would drink alcohol, he would become paranoid.”

AP:Wright also said Depp confided to him that he hated sobriety and that he “wanted to get sober for Amber.”

“He didn’t enjoy being sober,” Wright said. “It wasn’t fun, and that it was distressing and exhausting and very hard to do. He really, really resented having to be sober.”

When questioned about Heard’s substance abuse, Wright testified that though Heard would drink wine regularly unless she was training for a role, he rarely saw her take drugs.

“Amber was vehemently against cocaine,” said Wright, who’s known Heard for 11 years. “Amber doesn’t have a narcotic of choice. I’ve seen her ingest ecstasy once (during her birthday).”

Wright also spoke about witnessing many of the couple’s verbal arguments but said he never saw either of them become physically violent with each other. He also testified that Depp got upset when both he and Heard laughed at the “Pirates of the Caribbean” actor thinking they had defecated on his pillow.

Following the conversation, Wright said he heard Depp threaten Heard and commotion in the background which caused him to call Heard’s friend and authorities.

Johnny Depp’s attorney brings up Amber Heard’s previous drug use, photography of bruises

Depp’s attorney also grilled Heard about her past drug use with Depp in 2013. The actress confirmed she did mushrooms with Depp during a trip to Hicksville and took MDMA with her ex-husband on a plane to Russia.

Vasquez honed in on other occasions when Heard drank alcohol and smoked weed on her 30th birthday dinner in 2016 and MDMA and mushrooms at Coachella the following day, noting that she had to be picked up from the festival early.

Vasquez also focused on Heard being photographed with bruises on her face in May 2016 as she came out of a Los Angeles courtroom after filing a restraining order against Depp. Depp’s attorney has argued that Heard tipped off paparazzi, something she denied.

But the jury also saw a recording of a deposition Heard gave in 2016, in connection with her divorce, in which she appeared to inadvertently admit that she had tipped off the celebrity news outlet TMZ to aspects of her initial divorce proceedings. “You slipped up there, didn’t you, Ms. Heard?” Vasquez asked.

Heard testified to the jury that she was taken aback when paparazzi swarmed her courthouse appearance seeking a temporary restraining order and that she tried to avoid publicity as much as possible.

Amber Heard discusses Washington Post op-ed on domestic violence

Depp is suing Heard in Fairfax County Circuit Court for libel over an op-ed she wrote in The Washington Post describing herself as “a public figure representing domestic abuse.” His lawyers say he was defamed by the 2018 article even though it never mentioned his name.

Vesquez addressed the op-ed during Heard’s testimony on Tuesday, asking if specific parts of the article were about Depp. Heard said the article was in response to the #MeToo movement rather than specific to her ex-husband.

“When powerful men, in general, do something horrible or something they shouldn’t there is a system in place to protect them, clean up after them, maintain them, keep them afloat,” Heard testified of her op-ed. “It was not about him.”

She later added: “It was a reference to a general larger phenomenon, not just Johnny.”

Before Amber Heard’s testimony:Amber Heard says she’s a victim, but the public made her a villain.

Amber Heard says during cross-examination she didn’t want to go public about abuse

On Monday, Heard at times broke down in tears as she recalled her relationship with the “Pirates of the Caribbean” actor. She characterized their relationship as “violent and chaotic” at times.

The court played clips of a discussion between Heard and Depp, where she can be heard telling her ex-husband that even though she has evidence of his abuse towards her, she doesn’t want to go public with it because she didn’t want to “hurt” him.

“I was begging Johnny to not make me prove what I’ve had to sit on this stand in front of all of you and prove and talk about. … I didn’t want this. I don’t want to be here,” Heard said. “I was trying to point out how absurd it would be for him to keep making me prove this by calling me a liar.”

Johnny Depp, Amber Heard trial continues:Your lawsuit FAQs, answered

A spokesperson for Heard said in a statement to USA TODAY Monday ahead of her testimony that they expected Depp’s attorneys to “pound away on the victim,” because “when the facts are not on your side, pound away on the podium.”

“We fear it will be equal parts shameful and desperate. And, the overwhelming evidence — the truth — is not on Depp’s side,” the statement read. “The one thing we suspect Depp’s attorneys will avoid is the central issue of this trial: does Amber or any woman have the First Amendment Right of Freedom of Speech.”

Johnny Depp, Amber Heard detail relationship: What’s happened so far in libel trial

The high-profile trial resumed after a one-week hiatus to accommodate a judicial conference. Jurors have already heard four weeks of testimony with both Heard and Depp taking the stand, getting emotional at times as they shared allegations against one another and recounted their rocky relationship from meeting on the set of 2011’s “The Rum Diary” to sparking a romance, getting married, splitting up, and all the fights in between.

Cross-examination of Heard by Depp’s lawyers began Monday afternoon after more than two days of testimony.

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Heard told jurors she was physically and sexually abused on multiple occasions before and during her brief marriage to Depp, which lasted from 2015-16.

When Depp took the stand earlier, he maintained he “never struck Ms. Heard in any way, nor have I ever struck any women in my life.”

Heard and her attorneys argued the 2018 Washington Post column did nothing to damage Depp’s reputation – that the abuse accusations had been public for two years already, and Depp’s spiraling career was the result of his drinking and drug-using, which made him an unreliable commodity to Hollywood studios.

Contributing: Naledi Ushe, Maria Puente, Rasha Ali, Edward Segarra, USA TODAY; The Associated Press