Amber Heard’s former agent testified that the actress was “just filling space” by dating Elon Musk after her contentious split from Johnny Depp.
Christian Carino, a talent agent who at one point represented both Heard and Depp for Creative Artists Agency, had his pre-recorded March 11 deposition played for the Fairfax, Virginia, courtroom on Wednesday, in which he spoke about what Heard confided in him about her relationship with billionaire Tesla CEO Musk.
When discussing Heard’s breakup with Musk in August 2017, Carino recalled questioning why she was “sad” if she wasn’t “in love with him to begin with.” A lawyer for Depp read a text exchange between Carino and Heard in which she admitted that she was “just filling space” with Musk after her Depp split.
Heard texted Carino: “I hate that yet again a man let’s me fall on the spikes by myself. … Meaning, they are mad at me for leaving them and put things like this out there.” The agent then replied, “You could avoid all this if you stopped dating über-famous people. You can be with a big man who isn’t famous.”
Asked about the text exchange, Carino said, “I believe what I was saying was, ‘If you don’t like being in the press about your personal life, then don’t date people that are famous.”
He also testified that he was the one who arranged the July 2016 San Francisco meeting between Heard and Depp at her request, despite the domestic violence restraining order she got against Depp the week after filing for divorce. Depp previously said that he was “confused” by the meetup, during which he threatened to cut himself with a knife as Heard begged him to stop, audio recordings showed.
Text messages from 2017 were also read aloud that showed Heard asking Carino to deliver letters to Depp: “I don’t know how or where to start. There’s no way to begin. … Finally I am single, clear in my heart and mind. I just want him to know I love him and that I am sorry.” She also once told Carino that she missed Depp, leading Carino to believe she wanted to reconcile with Depp.
Over a year after the Musk breakup, Heard told The Hollywood Reporter in December 2018, “Elon and I had a beautiful relationship, and we have a beautiful friendship now, one that was based on our core values. Intellectual curiosity, ideas and conversation, a shared love for science. We just bonded on a lot of things that speak to who I am on the inside. I have so much respect for him.”
Heard, now 36, also had a relationship with girlfriend Bianca Butti during 2020, and she welcomed her first baby, a daughter, as a single mom in April 2021, saying she wanted to become a mom “on my own terms.”
Depp, 58, is suing Heard for defamation over a 2018 op-ed she wrote for the Washington Post about surviving domestic violence, though she did not name Depp in the article. Depp claimed that Heard had an affair with Musk “no later than one month after” she and Depp married in 2015.
A rep for Musk previously said that “Elon and Amber didn’t start seeing each other until May 2016, and even then it was infrequent. Their relationship didn’t become romantic until some time later.”
Depp and Heard, who met while making the 2011 movie The Rum Diary together, broke up in May 2016, when she sought a domestic violence restraining order against him, accusing him of abusing her. Depp denied the claims, and the former couple settled their divorce out of court in August 2016.
Back in November 2020, Depp lost his highly publicized U.K. libel lawsuit case against British tabloid The Sun for calling him a “wife-beater.” The court upheld the outlet’s claims as being “substantially true” and Heard testified to back up the claims. In March 2021, his attempt to overturn the decision was overruled.
Depp has testified that his “goal is the truth” as he seeks to clear his name in this trial, which is being televised live via various outlets. Ahead of the proceedings earlier this month, Heard — who has not taken the stand yet — said in a statement that “hopefully when this case concludes, I can move on and so can Johnny. I have always maintained a love for Johnny and it brings me great pain to have to live out the details of our past life together in front of the world.”
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