Closing arguments are underway in the defamation trial between Amber Heard and Johnny Depp, which kicked off April 11 in Fairfax, Virginia.
Closing arguments are in session in the Johnny Depp vs. Amber Heard defamation trial.
On Friday, the exes’ respective attorneys began presenting their final remarks in the ongoing trial in Fairfax, Virginia, summarizing much of the allegations on either side thus far since proceedings kicked off April 11.
“You either believe all of it, or none of it,” Depp’s attorney, Camille Vasquez, said of Heard’s allegations of abuse against Depp, 58. “Either she’s a victim of truly horrific abuse or she’s a woman who’s willing to say absolutely anything.”
She also accused Heard, 36, of “profound cruelty,” and of coming “into this courtroom prepared to give the performance of her life, and she gave it.”
The Aquaman actress’s attorney Ben Rottenborn said in part during his own closing remarks, “If he abused her one time, Amber wins,” and accused Depp of having “almost all of” his witnesses on his payroll.
“Let’s see the monster. Let’s see the monster in the flesh,” Rottenborn added, before playing the video of Depp slamming cabinets in the former couple’s kitchen.
Depp is suing Heard for $50 million in damages for defamation over a December 2018 op-ed she wrote about coming forward with abuse allegations, though she didn’t mention him by name in the article. In turn, Heard is countersuing him for defamation, seeking $100 million in damages.
She claims Depp launched an online campaign to discredit her allegations as “fake” and a “hoax,” harming her reputation and career trajectory.
When Depp got back on the witness stand for one last time on Wednesday, he conveyed the impact Heard’s allegations have had on his life and categorically denied her “insane” testimony.
“No human being is perfect, certainly not. None of us. But I have never in my life committed sexual battery, physical abuse, all these outlandish, outrageous stories of me committing these things and living with it for six years and waiting to be able to bring the truth out,” he said, later adding, “This is not easy for any of us; I know that.”
“Every single day, I have to relive the trauma,” Heard told the courtroom on the final day of testimonies in the defamation trial. She told the jury through tears, “Perhaps it’s easy to forget that, but I’m a human being,” as she described the “pain” she has experienced over the course of the live-televised trial as daily “torture.”
“I am harassed, humiliated, threatened every single day. Even just walking into this courtroom, sitting here in front of the world, having the worst parts of my life, things that I’ve lived through, used to humiliate me. People want to kill me, and they tell me so every day. People want to put my baby in the microwave, and they tell me that,” said Heard, who welcomed her daughter in April 2021. “Johnny threatened — promised me — that if I ever left him, he’d make me think of him every single day that I lived.”
Depp and Heard married in 2015 and split in May 2016, when Heard filed for divorce then sought a domestic violence restraining order against him. Depp denied her abuse claims, and the former couple settled their divorce out of court in August 2016.
In November 2020, Depp lost that 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, Depp’s attempt to overturn the decision was overruled.
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