Amber Heard Breaks Down as She Details Alleged Sexual Abuse by Johnny Depp

Pictures of Amber Heard’s bruised face were presented to the jury in a Virginia court late Thursday after she shared graphic accounts of the alleged sexual and physical abuse she endured at the hands of her former partner, Johnny Depp.

In one account, she alleged that Depp had raped her with a bottle while the pair was in Australia in 2015. Depp had been filming for the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise at the time, and the pair was renting a house.  

“I remember looking at all of the broken bottles, broken glass. I remember not wanting to move because I didn't know if it was broken, I didn't know if the bottle he had inside of me was broken,” Heard told the jury. 

The situation started after Depp had accused Heard of cheating on him with her The Danish Girl co-star, Heard said, so a fight had ensued. Heard alleged that Depp, whom she had already seen drink, was being “belligerent.” According to Heard, Depp had been taunting her with a bottle, so when she finally got hold of it, she threw it down on the white tile floor and smashed it. 

“That really set him off,” she said. 

She told the court Depp held a broken bottle to her jaw. “He told me he'd carve up my face,” she said.

Heard said that that night, Depp had slammed her and was calling her names, including “whore,” “slut”, and “fat ass.” He allegedly grabbed her by the neck and told her that everyone “warned him” about her. 

“I remember feeling really hurt and, at one point, I shoved him hard to get him off me and he shoved me back and he said, ‘You want to go, little girl?’” Heard said. 

Heard said she doesn’t remember the order of events during that fight, but she said he had thrown her across the room, was “whacking” her in the face, and at one point cornered her at a home bar while throwing bottles at her. She said she escaped after Depp ran out of things to throw, and then they got into another struggle, with Depp at one point ripping her nightgown off and taunting her while he held her breast.  

“He's flinging me around. He's screaming at me he fucking hates me, I ruined his life… He starts punching the wall next to my head, holding me by the neck,” Heard said.

The incident was the same one during which Depp alleges Heard threw a bottle at him, severing his finger. But Heard maintains she didn’t see his finger get injured. Depp had allegedly written messages in the house with paint and his own blood.

Heard’s tearful testimony is part of the multi-week trial that started after Depp launched a $50 million defamation suit against Heard in response to a 2018 Washington Post op-ed that Heard wrote about her experiences with domestic assault. The piece didn’t name Depp, but the Oscar-nominated actor maintains it’s “plainly” about him and that it cost him his career. Heard is countersuing Depp for $100 million in damages. 

Thursday was Heard’s second day of testimony. She shared multiple allegations of at times brutal treatment she says she endured while with Depp. She also spoke of several incidents when Depp was allegedly intoxicated or jealous, and repeatedly made allegations of Depp hitting her, shoving her, screaming at her, calling her names, and threatening to break up with her.   

Depp denies ever physically or sexually assaulting Heard.

Heard recounted several examples while on the stand. Shortly before Heard and Depp got married, Heard said the pair was in Tokyo in January 2015 for the premier of a movie Depp had starred in. Heard said they were in the hotel room, getting ready for the event, when they got into a fight. 

She told the court she said something that provoked him, so he “grabbed me by the arm and slammed me up against the hallway wall.” When Heard tried to circumvent Depp and hide in the closet, she alleged he had grabbed her hair and then hit her in the back of the head before wrestling her to the floor. 

She said Depp put his knee on her back and she struggled with him, before she managed to look at him. “I remember how he was screaming at me. Like really screaming,  loud,” Heard said, adding recalled how he had said that he hated her and didn’t want to marry her. 

“He left me on the closet floor and as embarrassing as it is to say, I went up to him at some point,” she told the jury.  “I just sat next to him… and leaned my head on his shoulder.” 

Later, the couple went to the premier and Heard said she was obsessively looking at photos from the red carpet because she was wearing a backless dress. 

Heard isn’t the only one to allege abuse during the trial. Depp has also made allegations that she abused him during their clearly tumultuous relationship. He previously told the jury about a 2015 incident during which he says Heard severed one of his fingers after she threw a bottle at him. 

Depp has denied allegations that he abused her, even though a UK court has previously decided that he likely did.

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