The cross-examination of Johnny Depp continued Thursday at his defamation trial, with a lawyer for ex-wife Amber Heard reading aloud graphic and violent-natured text messages the actor wrote and questioning him about his drug use.
Heard’s lawyer, J. Benjamin Rottenborn, referenced multiple messages that Depp sent about Heard in 2013 to his friend and fellow actor Paul Bettany.
One message read, “Let’s drown her before we burn her,” with Depp also mentioning having sex with Heard’s corpse afterward “to make sure she’s dead.”
Depp confirmed that Rottenborn was reading the messages correctly as the lawyer presented them to the Fairfax County Circuit Court in Virginia.
On Thursday, Depp also told the courtroom that Heard would use the term “monster” as a “way of referencing whether she perceived that I was on substances or taking substances.”
He said drugs and alcohol were a point of contention during their marriage, and that he’d tried a variety of drugs by the time he turned 15.
“They have always been a medicine for me, yes,” Depp, 58, told the court. “A numbing agent. ... It is to numb the residual pain that I carry from my youth.”
Heard’s lawyer read multiple messages during the hearing in which Depp appeared to reference drug use, including an April 2015 text where the actor raved about his relationship with Heard.
“All I had to do was send the monster away and lock him up,” Depp wrote to Jerry Judge, his longtime security guard. “We’ve been happier than ever.”
A 2014 message, meanwhile, involved Depp apologizing to Heard after a plane flight.
“Once again, I find myself in a place of shame and regret,” Depp’s message read. “Of course I am sorry. I really don’t know why or what happened but I will never do it again. I want to get better for you and for me. I must. My illness somehow crept up and grabbed me.”
Depp claimed days later in a text to Bettany that he drank alcohol and consumed pills and “powders.” Depp denied to the court Thursday that he blacked out during the flight from Boston to Los Angeles, saying there’s a difference between blacking out and being on opiates.
“When I write a text, especially if I’m in a particularly impassioned place, it’s a canvas,” Depp told the court Thursday. “It’s a painting. You choose your colors.”
Depp sued Heard for defamation over a 2018 op-ed she wrote for the Washington Post, in which she described herself as “a public figure representing domestic abuse.” Heard didn’t name Depp in the piece, but had previously accused the actor of physical and verbal abuse, which he denies.
The cross-examination at the Fairfax, Virginia, courtroom began Wednesday afternoon following two days of testimony from Depp.
During Tuesday’s hearing, Heard told the seven-person jury, “I’m not some maniac that needs to be high or loaded all the time. On film sets, there have been no moments where I would have been considered out of control.”
Depp said Tuesday that he’s never struck Heard or any other woman, and claimed Wednesday that Heard would often “strike out” at him.
“It could begin with a slap,” Depp said. “It could begin with a shove. It could begin with throwing a TV remote at my head. It could be throwing a glass of wine in my face.”
Depp claimed he suffered a severed right middle finger in 2015 after Heard allegedly hurled a vodka bottle at him.
Heard, who has been present each day Depp took the stand, will have the opportunity to testify during the trial. The 35-year-old actress and Depp were married from 2015-17.
Depp, a three-time Oscar nominee, previously lost a libel lawsuit against the publisher of British tabloid The Sun over an article painting him as a “wife beater.” A judge ruled in 2020 that the claims were “substantially true,” and Depp was denied the opportunity to appeal the decision last year.
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