The manager of the property in the Australian home, where Johnny Depp and Amber Heard stayed in 2015 during their tumultuous marriage, testified on Monday about the damage he suffered after one of their sharpest clashes.
Manager Ben King described how he toured the site after the battle and found a scene of broken glass, bloody drops, a damaged bar counter and a collapsed ping-pong table.
This was a consequence of an episode that is emblematic of the allegations of a duel that filled out the defamation lawsuit filed by Mr. Depp against Ms. Hurd. Mr Depp said that during that battle, Mrs. Hurd threw him a bottle of vodka, which shattered and cut off his fingertip. She objected that he had cut it himself when he smashed a phone into a wall.
Mr King testified that he found Mr Depp’s fingertip in a “crumpled” piece of paper among the wreckage.
The property manager’s testimony came after Mr. Depp finished his fourth and final day at the stand at Fairfax County Court in Virginia. During his testimony, Mr Depp described how his relationship with Mrs Hurd had broken down, sometimes using eloquent descriptions or pantomime blows, which he said she had targeted him and suggested had been “broken”. from the experience.
“It’s psychologically, emotionally where I was,” he testified Monday as he was questioned by one of his lawyers. “I was at the end.”
In court documents, Ms. Hurd accused Mr. Depp of repeatedly abusing her during their relationship, claiming that he hit her, kicked her, hit her in the head and tore chunks of hair from her scalp. she wrote an opinion in The Washington Post describing how her career was negatively affected by her becoming a “public figure representing domestic violence.”
The play did not name Mr Depp, but he said he had apparently hinted at it and damaged his career and reputation.
Mr Depp had previously sued The Sun in England for printing a headline calling him a “woman beater”. He lost this case in 2020.
Mr. Depp and Mrs. Hurd met when Ms. Hurd was chosen as Mr. Depp’s love interest in the 2011 film The Rum Diary. They married in 2015 and divorced in 2017.
Testifying Monday, Mr Depp said he learned in a published interview with Disney’s CEO two days after Ms. Hurd’s opinion that he would not return to the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise for potential sixth film. Mr Depp testified that he said he wanted the characters in the films – including his character, Captain Jack Sparrow – to have a “goodbye”.
Mr Depp appears to be referring to a 2018 Hollywood Reporter interview with Disney CEO Sean Bailey, in which the reporter asked, “Can pirates survive without Johnny Depp?” Mr Bailey said he wanted to. to bring “new energy and vitality” in the event of a restart of “Pirates”.
“Suddenly I was guilty until proven innocent,” Mr Depp said.
During Mr Depp’s cross-examination on Monday, Ms Hurd’s lawyers argued that the actor’s reputation had declined well before the 2018 article, citing a 2017 article in the Hollywood Reporter calling him “Star in Crisis” and another describes “reducing the return of Johnny Depp.”
Johnny Depp’s defamation case against Amber Heard
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In the courtroom. A defamation lawsuit involving former married actors Johnny Depp and Amber Heard is currently pending in Fairfax County Court in Virginia. Here’s what you need to know about the case:
Ms. Hurd’s option. Mr Depp’s lawsuit came in response to a publication Ms. Hurd wrote for The Washington Post in 2018, in which she described herself as a “public figure representing domestic violence.” Although she did not mention her ex-husband’s name, he and his lawyers say she apparently meant their relationship.
Allegations of domestic violence. In the 2020 trial, Ms. Hurd accused her ex-husband of assaulting her for the first time in 2013 after they began dating, and described in detail other cases in which he hit her, hit her in the head and he throws it on the ground. Since then, Mr. Depp has accused her of hitting him, kicking him and throwing objects at him.
“It’s a bunch of hit songs generated by Ms. Hurd’s advertising team,” Mr. Depp said.
Mr Depp testified that he never hit Ms Hurd – or any woman – and that she was the aggressor in the relationship, insulting him with humiliating language that escalated to physical violence. Ms. Hurd denied hitting Depp except in self-defense or in defense of her sister.
There is no doubt that the atmosphere between the two was sometimes incendiary.
Mr Depp was confronted during a cross-examination with text messages to others in which he referred to Mrs Hurd using vulgar insults; in response to a particularly graphic and violent text message about Mrs Hurd, Mr Depp said on Monday: “This is disrespectful and abstract humor.”
In his testimony, Mr King said he worked at Mr Depp’s residence in London, as well as at his house in Australia, where Mr Depp stayed while working on one of the Pirates films.
He testified that he had seen and heard many disputes between Mr Depp and Ms Hurd. They tend to follow suit, added Mr King, in which Mr Depp leaves the room and Ms Hurd follows. Mr King said a dispute in London had started when Mrs Hurd asked Mr Depp why he had withdrawn his hand from her, adding that he thought she sounded like a “spoiled teenage child”.
Mr. King testified that he was called to the house after Mr. Depp’s finger was cut off, and he remembered Mrs. Hurd sobbing when he entered. The premises are in disarray, he said. A piece was broken off a marble staircase. The blood had stained the carpet and scratched several walls.
In the lower level of the house, Mr King said, there was the smell of alcohol and canned food scattered near the bar. He began searching the area and said he soon found the tip of his finger “embedded” in a bloody piece of paper. Mr King then placed him in a plastic bag so he could be rushed to hospital, he added.
Mr Depp’s finger was later surgically repaired.
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