Editor’s note: Some testimony contains graphic language and descriptions of sexual and physical assault.
Testimony is set to continue Tuesday in the civil trial between Johnny Depp and Amber Heard. The trial in Depp’s $50 million lawsuit and Heard’s $100 million countersuit is in its sixth week.
Depp is suing Heard for libel in Fairfax County Circuit Court over a December 2018 op-ed she wrote in The Washington Post describing herself as “a public figure representing domestic abuse.” His lawyers say he was defamed by the article even though it never mentioned his name.
Shaw Thew / AP
Depp has denied he ever struck Heard, and says she was the abuser in the relationship. Heard has testified about more than a dozen separate instances of physical abuse she says she suffered at Depp’s hands.
Monday’s testimony was relatively mundane in a trial that has provided an ugly glimpse into the couple’s toxic relationship. There had been an expectation that Heard’s lawyers were going to call Depp to the stand Monday, but that did not occur.
A hand surgeon, Dr. Richard Moore, testified Monday that Depp could not have lost the tip of his middle finger the way he told jurors it happened, as jurors saw gruesome photos of the injury. He said that Depp described that his palm was down on a bar when it was struck by the bottle. While Depp had told the jury that Heard severed the finger by throwing a vodka bottle, at the time of the accident he told people and sent text messages saying he’d done it to himself.
Moore, who did not treat Depp, testified that Depp’s description is unlikely, in large part because his fingernail remained intact.
A psychiatrist testified that Depp’s behavior fits the pattern of a person whose drug and alcohol abuse contributes to domestic violence. Depp lawyer Wayne Dennison questioned the ethics and credibility of the psychiatrist’s opinions, given that he never conducted an examination of Depp.
Another Heard witness, entertainment expert Kathryn Arnold, testified that Heard lost out on a potential $40 million to $50 million when another Depp lawyer called Heard’s claims of abuse a “hoax.”
Dennison, in his questioning, scoffed at the notion that Heard was in the same league as stars like Gal Gadot, Jason Momoa and Zendaya, which Arnold had used to show where Heard’s career Heard’s career would have gone if Depp attorney Adam Waldman had not defamed her.
Shaw Thew / AP
The trial has drawn increasing public attention over its length. People camped out overnight and squabbled over places in line as they sought to get one of the 100 seats in the courtroom allocated to the public. During a morning break, one woman professed her love for Depp and asked when he was going to acknowledge that he was the father of the baby she was holding in her arms.
She was removed from the courtroom.
