[Warning: Potentially Triggering Content]
The past couple years of reveals in Johnny Depp‘s ongoing legal war with ex Amber Heard have not resulted in her claims looking very good. But as the defamation trial continues, far from backtracking on the accusations of violence, she’s doubling down!
Johnny is, of course, suing over his ex’s Washington Post op-ed, in which she accused him of domestic and sexual violence against her. It was that essay which began the Pirates of the Caribbean star’s slow ouster from Hollywood, in which he was booted from the aforementioned Disney franchise and later the Harry Potter spinoff Fantastic Beasts films. He has spent the past couple years denying her claims, doing everything he can to show she made it all up to make herself look better after the divorce.
And a lot of it has worked, as we’ve seen evidence she hit him, she lied about it, she even taunted him that no one would believe him.
Related: Amber DIDN’T WRITE Her Op-Ed Accusing Johnny Of Domestic Violence?!
This trial is all about convincing the jury one way or the other, once and for all, whether the accusations against Johnny are true. If they believe them, Amber didn’t commit defamation, she just told the truth. If Johnny’s team convinces them it’s all a lie, then so is her op-ed.
It’s already getting fiery as Amber’s lawyer, Elaine Bredehoft, painted a picture for the jury of the infamous 2015 altercation in Australia, what she referred to as a “three-day hostage situation.” Bredehoft made the shocking new claim that Johnny “violated” his then-wife with a wine bottle! Just a horrific claim. But… why didn’t she ever mention it before when she was already describing the alleged abuse??
Amber previously stated that Johnny choked her, threw bottles at her, and injured his finger smashing a phone during an MDMA binge. She wrote:
“In one of the most horrific and scariest moments of this three-day ordeal, Johnny grabbed me by the neck and collarbone and slammed me against the countertop. I struggled to stand up as he strangled me, but my arms and feet kept slipping and sliding on to the spilled alcohol and were dragged against the broken glass on the countertop and floor, which repeatedly slashed my feet and arms. Scared for my life, I told Johnny, ‘You are hurting me and cutting me.’ Johnny ignored me, continuing to hit me with the back of one closed hand, and slamming a hard plastic phone against a wall with his other until it was smashed into smithereens. While he was smashing the phone, Johnny severely injured his finger, cutting off the tip of it… Once I was able to get away, I barricaded myself in an upstairs bedroom.”
(Johnny later claimed it was Amber who hurt his finger by hurling a bottle at him.) Nowhere in her previous recollections of the incident did she mention this horrible act. And that’s just what Johnny’s people have rushed to point out.
Outside of court, The Sun reports, Depp’s spokesman said:
“These fictitious claims were never made at the onset of Amber’s allegations in 2016, and only advantageously surfaced years later once she was sued for defamation after noting in her op-ed that she was a victim of ‘sexual violence’. Words are key in a defamation case and conveniently, this allegation only came after that.”
He continued, straight up accusing Amber of riding the #MeToo movement with a false accusation:
“This follows a pattern of her elaborate, erroneous claims which have continued to change and evolve over time for the purpose of Hollywood shock value of which Amber has mastered and used to exploit a serious social movement.”
This obviously wouldn’t be the first time we heard this accusation.
Related: Former Assistant Claims Amber STOLE Sexual Assault Story & ‘Twisted It Into Her Own’!
As far as proving she was lying, well, that’s easier said than done.
After Johnny’s own sister, the next witness was his childhood friend and neighbor Isaac Baruch. The painter is not just besties with Johnny but also owes him big time — as the movie star became his patron, allowing him to stay rent-free in an apartment in his penthouse for years. So his testimony will certainly be weighted a little differently for the jury.
Still, he was a convincing and affable witness, making the entire court laugh several times — no mean feat considering the situation. However, when things got serious, he told the court his version of events.
First, he claimed Johnny and Amber usually got along like lovebirds and that he only saw them argue a couple times and never violently. So he was naturally alarmed when he saw broken glass and spilled wine outside the couple’s apartment door. He testified that Amber’s pal Josh Drew told him it had been a “rough day” but there was nothing he could do to help. The next morning, Baruch said, he saw Amber in the hallway, and she told him:
“Johnny came by last night, he got violent, so I’m changing the locks.”
However, says Baruch, Amber did NOT have a single mark on her face and it “didn’t look like she was wearing makeup then either.”
It wasn’t until later that she shared the infamous photograph of her face after Johnny had allegedly hit her with a thrown cell phone — a photo Isaac said he was surprised to see considering her face had been fine the day after the alleged altercation.
During cross-examination, Amber’s attorney asked Baruch if he was “familiar with what type of makeup Amber Heard uses on a daily basis”, to which he admitted he did not. When Bredehoft inferred then that he didn’t really “know she was not wearing makeup,” Baruch conceded he did not know “for a fact.”
Bredehoft also asked if the painter felt “beholden” to Johnny for supporting him financially for so long, something he openly admitted to. However, he said he did not, which seems like an odd response to us. We mean, he let him live rent-free in a great place in Los Angeles and gave him an estimated hundred grand over four years? Just to paint to his heart’s content?? We mean, why wouldn’t he feel like he owed Johnny??
Of course, that doesn’t necessarily imply he would lie under oath for his friend. In fact when asked that exact question, Baruch denied it, saying, “No, no, no.”
Related: Amber Says She Hopes She & Johnny ‘Can Move On’ After Trial
Next, Bredehoft asked if he was “angry” at Amber, perhaps trying to insinuate another possible motivation for the neighbor saying what he did on the stand. However, that went rather worse for the defendant as he emotionally answered:
“About the phony pictures that were taken and put in tabloids and about the fake narrative and the way she’s got a fraudulent DV claim to extort and blackmail a man, yeah, that got me frustrated, confused, angry, upset, yes.”
While he said he hoped Amber would heal and move on from all this, it wasn’t going to be so easy for his friend. Getting choked up, he said:
“For Johnny, his family has been completely wrecked by all of this and it’s not fair, it’s not right what she did and what happened for so many people to get affected from this. It’s insane how this happened.”
Baruch got emotional on the stand "It's not fair. It's not right what she did…"
Heard's attorney asks him what if it's true, what if Depp has been physically violent with Heard? Depp's attorney objected, judge sustained. #JohnnyDepp #AmberHeard pic.twitter.com/XNJXfEhHdO
— Cathy Russon (@cathyrusson) April 13, 2022
Amber’s attorney tried a different tactic, challenging the assertion that Johnny and Amber were mostly a loving couple, asking if he remembered Johnny ever calling Amber the C-word. Baruch answered candidly:
“Maybe in a text… he’s called me a c**t in a text, so it could be, I don’t know how many texts. If there’s something specific you could show me, that would be a different story.”
Bredehoft did have something to show him. She introduced texts from October 2016 in which Depp called Amber a “c**t” and said he hoped “that Amber’s rotting corpse is decomposing in the trunk of a Honda Civic.” He also wrote that she “ruined such a f**king cool life that we had for a while” such that he “can’t even look at the building anymore.”
However, as was pretty obvious, these texts were from after the divorce and first domestic assault accusation. It’s not really helpful to show he was saying that type of thing after what his side is claiming is a lie that destroyed his career.
We have no idea how the trial is going so far, as so much of this battle is going to be fought in the hearts and minds of the jury members. Obviously it means a lot that Baruch is “beholden” to Johnny, whether he admits feeling that way or not. But was he convincing anyway? We’ll have to see.
What do YOU think of the evidence you’ve seen so far??
[Image via Law & Crime/YouTube.]
The post Amber Heard Makes Shocking New Claim That Johnny Depp 'Violated' Her With A Bottle As Defamation Trial Takes Darker Turn appeared first on Perez Hilton.