AMBER Heard said she was the victim of Johnny Depp’s “rage and uncontrolled violence” as she testified in her $100m defamation trial.
The Aquaman actress broke down in tears as she described being “heartbroken” by the moment her ex-husband hit her for the first time.
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Miss Heard said that it “changed my life forever” and said she wished she had left him then instead of staying with him for another four years.
Asked about the first time Mr Depp physically hit her, Miss Heard said she and Mr Depp were talking on the couch and he had been using cocaine as there was a jar of it on the table.
Miss Heard asked Mr Depp about the tattoo on his arm which read ‘Wino Forever’ – he had it changed from ‘Winona Forever’ after he split up with the actress of the same name.
Miss Heard said: “He said it says wino and I thought he was joking and I laughed.
“He slapped me across the face and I laughed. I laughed because I didn’t know what else to do. I thought this must be a joke. Because I didn’t know what was going on.
“I just stared at him laughing thinking he was going to start laughing too to tell me it’s a joke.
“(He said) you think it’s funny b****, you think you’re a funny b****? And he slapped me again. It wasn’t a joke anymore. I stopped laughing. I just stared at him.”
Miss Heard said that she wished she could have “drew a line” and left Mr Depp but she didn’t.
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The testimony came after Mr Depp, 58, spent the last three weeks portraying Miss Heard, 35, as the abusive partner.
The exes were married for 15 stormy months until they split in 2016 with Miss Heard filing for divorce and a temporary restraining order.
At the court in Fairfax, Virginia, Miss Heard entered the witness box wearing a black suit and waistcoat with a blue and white striped shirt underneath.
Her long blonde hair was swept into a side parting.
Miss Heard said that Mr Depp was suing her over an op-ed she wrote for the Washington Post in 2018 in which she called herself a victim of domestic violence.
Mr Depp sat 10ft away from her at a bench with his legal team and barely looked at her.
Miss Heard said that Mr Depp was suing her over an op-ed she wrote for the Washington Post in 2018 in which she called herself a victim of domestic violence.
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Asked how she felt about it, she said: “I struggle to have the words. I struggle to find the words to describe how painful this is.
“This is horrible for me to sit here for weeks and relive everything, hear people that I knew, some well, some now, my ex-husband with whom I shared a life, speak about our lives in the way that they have.
“This is the most painful and difficult thing I’ve ever gone through, for sure.”
It comes after the court heard how Mr Depp allegedly performed a cavity search on his ex-wife to try and find drugs and screamed “I’ll f**king kill you” during an attack.
Miss Heard’s first witness, Dawn Hughes, a New York-based clinical and forensic psychologist, described multiple instances of sexual violence to the court.
Dr Hughes said when Mr Depp “was drunk or high he threw her on the bed, ripped off her nightgown and tried to have sex with her”.
She said: “He forced her to give him oral sex when he was angry. These weren’t loving moments, these were dominant moments.”
Dr Hughes claimed Mr Depp “performed a cavity search” on Amber in an attempt to look for drugs.
How you can get help
Women’s Aid has this advice for victims and their families:
- Always keep your phone nearby.
- Get in touch with charities for help, including the Women’s Aid live chat helpline and services such as SupportLine.
- If you are in danger, call 999.
- Familiarise yourself with the Silent Solution, reporting abuse without speaking down the phone, instead dialing “55”.
- Always keep some money on you, including change for a pay phone or bus fare.
- If you suspect your partner is about to attack you, try to go to a lower-risk area of the house – for example, where there is a way out and access to a telephone.
- Avoid the kitchen and garage, where there are likely to be knives or other weapons. Avoid rooms where you might become trapped, such as the bathroom, or where you might be shut into a cupboard or other small space.
If you are a victim of domestic abuse, SupportLine is open Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday from 6pm to 8pm on 01708 765200. The charity’s email support service is open weekdays and weekends during the crisis – [email protected].
Women’s Aid provides a live chat service – available weekdays from 8am-6pm and weekends 10am-6pm.
You can also call the freephone 24-hour National Domestic Abuse Helpline on 0808 2000 247.
