Johnny Depp Says He's A 'Victim Of Domestic Violence' And Details Alleged Abuse In Final Evidence

Johnny Depp said he was a victim of domestic abuse as he concluded his testimony in the defamation lawsuit brought against his ex-wife Amber Heard.

The 58-year-old actor is suing Heard for libel over a 2018 article she wrote in The Washington Post, which his lawyers say falsely implies he physically and sexually abused her.

As he concluded giving evidence in Fairfax County, Virginia, the court heard audio of the former couple discussing their relationship breakdown in 2016, in which 36-year-old Heard said to Depp: "Tell the world Johnny, tell them I Johnny Depp, a man, am a victim too of domestic violence."

In her final question to Depp on Monday (25 April), his lawyer Camille Vasquez asked him how he responded to this.

"I said yes, I am," Depp replied.

Alamy

Depp also spoke about when the end of his finger was sliced off during a row with Heard in 2015.

In a text to his doctor, the Pirates of the Caribbean star referred to 'chopping my finger off', but he said that he didn't mean he had chopped it off himself.

Referring to his love of playing guitar, he told the court: "Why would I ruin the only good thing in my life?...Thank god it wasn't the left hand... That's the fret hand... I would have had to totally re-learn playing the guitar if it had been the left hand."

Depp also claimed that texts he sent to actor and friend Paul Bettany about burning and drowning Aquaman star Heard were a joke based on a Monty Python sketch.

Alamy

The court previously heard that during a 2013 text exchange with Bettany, Depp had written: "Let's burn Amber.

"Let's drown her before we burn her. I will f*** her burnt corpse afterwards to make sure she's dead."

But Depp said he and Bettany had connected over their 'abstract sense of humour' to deal with difficult situations, and the comments were never 'intended to be real'.

"As these are private texts there was a lot... in context," he said.

"It's important to know none of that was ever intended to be real and the language used which … yes, I am ashamed (of) has to be spread on the world like peanut butter.

"For example, the text that is about burning Ms Heard is directly from Monty Python and the sketch about burning witches and then drowning the witches.

"This is a film we'd all watch when we were 10 – it's just irreverent and abstract humour."

Depp is suing Heard for $50m (£38.2m), while Heard has issued a counterclaim for $100m (£76.4m).

The pair began dating after meeting on the set of 2011 film The Rum Diary and got married in 2015. Heard obtained a restraining order against Depp the following year and they finalised their divorce in 2017.

In 2020, Depp lost a libel case brought against The Sun over an article in which he was labelled a 'wife beater'.

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