Entertainment

Amber Heard admits to hitting Johnny Depp ( LISTEN to Audio played court)

Published

3 years ago

April 21, 2022

As Johnny Depp and Amber Heard face off in a Virginia courtroom, new details are being revealed about their relationship and what led to their public divorce

THIS AUDIO WAS JUST PLAYED ALOUD IN THE JOHNNY DEPP V. AMBER HEARD TRIAL. “I FUCKING WAS HITTING YOU.”

Tell me again how this woman is a victim and not an abuser. #justiceforjohnnydepp #istandwithjohnnydepp

pic.twitter.com/nMnW4wVKiX
— Dee (@tasteofsanity) April 20, 2022

Johnny Depp’s reaction to the court finally getting to hear the audio tape in which Amber Heard admits to abusing him. #JusticeforJohnnyDepp pic.twitter.com/kdvII6mlss
— mary (@johnnyhellodepp) April 20, 2022

LISTEN: The audio recordings of #JohnnyDepp and #AmberHeard were played for the jury on Wednesday, where Heard says "I was hitting you, it was not punching you," and called Depp a baby. @LawCrimeNetwork pic.twitter.com/rXiZAp8EVR
— Law&Crime Network (@LawCrimeNetwork) April 20, 2022

Content warning: This story discusses sexual assault and abuse.

Johnny Depp and Amber Heard are ready for a battle in the courtroom.

More than five years after their breakup, Depp’s $50 million defamation lawsuit against his ex-wife is taking center stage in a Virginia courtroom. In opening statements shared on April 12, Depp’s lawyers argued that Heard ruined the actor’s reputation by “choosing to lie about him for her own personal benefit.”

Back in 2018, Heard wrote an essay for the Washington Post in which she described herself as a “public figure representing domestic abuse.” Although the article never mentioned Depp by name, his attorneys previously said in court documents that Heard’s op-ed was all part of an “elaborate hoax.”

The Pirates of the Caribbean star also claimed in court documents that Heard concocted her story in the hopes of generating “positive publicity” and to “advance her career.”

Days before the trial began, Heard made a rare statement on Instagram announcing a break from social media. “Johnny is suing me for an op-ed I wrote in the Washington Post, in which I recounted my experience of violence and domestic abuse,” she wrote on April 9. “I wrote about the price women pay for speaking out against men in power. I continue to pay that price, but hopefully when this case concludes, I can move on and so can Johnny.”

As the trial continues and is broadcast live on TV, E! News is keeping track of the biggest revelations from both sides. Keep reading to get the latest before a jury reaches a verdict.

Johnny Depp Explains Why He “Lied” About His Severed Finger
Though Depp initially sought treatment at an emergency room for his severed finger, the actor said during his testimony on April 20 that he “lied” to the doctor there about how he got injured.

“I didn’t want to get her in trouble,” he testified. “I tried to just keep things as copasetic and as easy as possible for everyone. I did not want to put her name in that mix.”

Previously, a judge presiding over Depp’s libel lawsuit against The Sun did not accept that Heard was responsible for severing the actor’s fingertip through allegedly throwing a vodka bottle at him, according to The Guardian.

Johnny Depp Says He Tried to “Make It Work” with Amber Heard
During his court appearance on April 20, Depp compared his contentious relationship with Heard to the abuse he and his father John Depp Sr. allegedly experienced at the hands of his late mother, Betty Sue Palmer.

“The only thing I learned to do was exactly what I did as a child—retreat, take a step back,” he said. “Why did I stay? I stayed, I suppose, because my father stayed.”

Johnny Depp Claims Amber Heard Used His Childhood to “Verbally Decimate” Him
On April 20, Depp claimed in court that Heard used his embattled childhood against him, with him saying it “became ammunition for Miss Heard to either verbally decimate me or to send me into a kind of tailspin of confusion and depression.”

Depp said the “only way to find any sort of peace was to try to walk away,” adding that “there were times when I would just go and lock myself in the bathroom or anywhere that she couldn’t get into.”

Johnny Depp Says He Turned to Drugs and Alcohol as a “Numbing Agent”
Sharing that there were “constant clashes” throughout his relationship with Heard, Depp testified on April 20 that he used drugs and alcohol “to have something to distance me and distance my heart from those verbal attacks.”

“I was more inspired by Miss Heard to reach out for a numbing agent,” he said. “I had to have something to be able to maintain me.”

Johnny Depp Calls Detoxing Under Amber Heard’s Watch the “Lowest Point in My Life”
Depp’s doctor, David Kipper, previously testified that the actor traveled to the Bahamas with Heard in August 2014 for a detox from the opiates he had been taking after dental surgery, according to The Washington Post.

During his testimony on April 20, Depp said broke down crying during that trip when he begged Heard to give him his medication amid a withdrawal.

“That was the lowest I’d ever felt as a human being,” he recalled. “Tears streaming down my face, begging another human being, ‘Please, please give me the meds that will take this away.’ And she would not.”

Johnny Depp Alleges Amber Heard Put a Cigarette Out on His Face
While on the stand during a testimony on April 20, Depp claimed Heard once took a lit cigarette and “stomped it out on my face.”

“This was after the finger had gone away,” he continued, referring to the March 2015 incident in which his finger was severed. “She stubbed it out in my face, on my cheek.”

E! News has reached out to Heard’s rep for comment.

Johnny Depp’s Controversial Texts to Amber Heard
On April 13, text messages between Depp and his neighbor Isaac Baruch were revealed in court.

”I hope that Amber’s rotten corpse is decomposing in a f–king trunk of a honda civic,” Depp’s text read, according to court footage posted to Twitter. Baruch acknowledged as real, saying, “…I see it here. Yeah, it was written.”

The messages were presented while Baruch was being cross-examined on the stand by Heard’s attorney Elaine Bredehoft. E! News reached out to Depp’s rep who said they would not be commenting.

Johnny Depp Denies Amber Heard’s Sexual Assault Allegation
During opening statements, Heard’s attorney Ben Rottenborn claimed his client suffered sexual violence at the hands of Depp. He also alleged that the actress suffered domestic abuse by Depp that “took many forms,” including physical, emotional, verbal and psychological abuse.

“You will hear in the most graphic and horrifying terms about the violence that she suffered,” Rottenborn said about Heard’s upcoming testimony. “You’ll hear that straight from her. She will get on the stand and she will tell you that. It happened.”

A spokesperson for Depp denied the allegations, saying, “This follows a pattern of her elaborate, erroneous claims which have continued to change and evolve over time for the purpose of Hollywood shock value of which Amber has mastered and used to exploit a serious social movement.”

Did Johnny Depp and Amber Heard Engage in “Mutual Abuse”?
Laurel Avis Anderson, a therapist who worked with Depp and Heard, testified on April 14 that the couple engaged in “mutual abuse.”

“I thought he had been well controlled,” Anderson said according to Variety when discussing Depp’s past partners. “With Ms. Heard, he was triggered. They engaged in what I saw as mutual abuse.” The therapist, who saw the couple several times between October and December 2015, testified that Depp denied being violent. At the same time, she said the pair, who wed in February 2015, had “terrible skills” communicating.

“Ms. Heard had a jackhammer style of talking. She was very amped up,” Anderson testified. “He had trouble talking at a similar pace…She loved him. He loved her. She believed that she wasn’t stupid. She knew what they were doing wasn’t healthy.”

Johnny Depp’s Doctor Recalls Treating His Severed Finger
Depp’s longtime doctor David Kipper participated in a deposition that was played in court on April 18. In the deposition, recorded in February, Kipper recalled treating the actor after his fingertip was severed.

Kipper said he didn’t know how Depp had gotten injured back in March 2015 when he cleaned the actor’s wound in Australia. Depp previously claimed Heard “threw a large glass vodka bottle” at him and that the bottle hit the countertop where he had his hand and caused his finger to shatter. “I had to have three surgeries to reconstruct my finger and contracted MRSA three times,” Depp said back in 2019 in his first declaration as part of his $50 million defamation lawsuit against her. “I feared that I would lose my finger, my arm and my life.”

When asked in the deposition about a text message to Kipper from Depp that claimed the actor cut his own finger, Kipper responded, “I think that’s what it said, yes.” Kipper also testified that the actor told the ER doctor he’d cut his own finger with a knife.

Why Johnny Depp Took the Stand

On April 19, Depp took the stand and explained why he chose to pursue the high-profile defamation case.

“I felt it my responsibility to stand up not only for myself in my instance, but stand up for my children who at the time were 14 and 16,” the dad of Lily-Rose Depp, 22 and Jack Depp, 20, with ex Vanessa Paradis, testified, NBC News reported. “They were in high school and I thought it was diabolical that my children would have to go to school and have their friends or people in school approach them with the infamous People magazine cover with Miss Heard with a dark bruise on her face.” The cover, released in June 2016, featured a photo taken from Heard’s friend of the actress visibly injured.

Depp went on to say he never reached the point of striking Heard “in any way” nor has he ever struck any woman in his life.

“It’s been six years of trying times,” Depp told the court. “It’s really strange when one day you’re Cinderella so to speak, and zero point six seconds you’re Quasimodo. And I didn’t deserve that, nor did my children, nor did the people who believed in me for all these years. I didn’t want anybody to believe that I had done them wrong or that I had lied to them or that I was a fraud.”

Depp is expected to remain on the stand for cross examination on April 21 before Heard takes the stand.