Johnny Depp, Amber Heard trial continues: Marriage counselor claims stars engaged in "mutual abuse"
A Virginia jury will continue to hear witness testimony Thursday in Johnny Depp's defamation case filed against his ex-wife, Amber Heard, who has accused Depp of abuse.
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Actor Johnny Depp sits with his legal team in the courtroom at the Fairfax County Circuit Courthouse in Fairfax, Va. (Shawn Thew/Pool Photo via AP)
Johnny Depp and his e-wife Amber Heard were both abusive to each other during their vicious quarrels, a marriage counselor testified in a videotaped deposition played Thursday in a Virginia courtroom.
Depp, 58, is suing heard for defamation over a 2018 Washington Post op-ed she wrote alleging that she was a victim of domestic violence. She did not name Depp.
"With Ms. Heard, he was triggered and they engaged in what I saw as mutual abuse," said Dr. Laurel Anderson, who described a dysfunctional and a volatile relationship. "I know she led on more than one occasions and started it."
Heard, 35, told Anderson that she had hit, socked and threw a can at the "Pirates of the Caribbean" star on various occasions. She said he had also hit her and once showed Anderson her bruises.
"It was a point of pride to her if she felt disrespected to initiate a fight," the Los Angeles doctor said, as Heard and Depp watched her testimony on a monitor in Fairfax County Circuit Court. "Her father had beaten her.” Depp was also physically abused as a child.
During the couples therapy sessions which began in October 2015, Depp had difficulty having a voice, Anderson said. “Ms. Heard had a jackhammer style of talking," the clinical psychologist observed. "She was very amped up. He had trouble talking at a similar pace. He was cut off a lot.”
Johnny Depp called then-wife Amber Heard a “malicious, venomous and evil c—-“ in a text to his doctor after the couple had a vicious row that left him with a missing digit in 2015.
The message was read Thursday in court during the testimony of Depp's private addiction doctor, David Kipper. The blow up occurred in Australia where Depp was filming "Pirates of the Caribbean."
"I cannot live like this. She’s as full of s—t as a Christmas goose. I’m done NO MORE!!!" he texted Kipper who was in the country treating him for drug addiction at the time. “I cut the top of my middle finger off."
The actor's text appears to contradict prior testimony he gave in another proceeding when he said that Heard threw a vodka bottle at him, severing the top of his finger.
He used the bleeding stub to write on the home's walls and mirrors during what he described as mental breakdown.
In a conflicting account, Heard previously called the trip a “three-day hostage situation” in which Depp attacked her and tore apart the house in a drug fueled rage. She has denied injuring his finger.
Gina Deuters, a friend of actor Johnny Depp, testified Thursday at the Fairfax County Circuit Courthouse in Virginia. (Shawn Thew/Pool Photo via AP)
A witness testified Thursday that Amber Heard gave her ecstasy in 2015 during her and Johnny Depp’s wild wedding on his private Caribbean island.
Gina Deuters, whose husband works for Depp, told jurors in a Virginia courtroom that Heard and her friends appeared to be having “a wonderful time” and offered her the pill.
“[Heard] and all her friends were on it. It was like a party atmosphere,” she said of the drug MDMA, also known as ecstasy. “I decided to throw caution to the wind and try it.”
The “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” star is suing his ex-wife for defamation over a Washington Post op-ed she wrote in 2018 alleging she was a victim of domestic violence after their brief marriage publicly disintegrated. She did not name Depp in the piece.
After the wedding, Deuters said she flew with Depp and his team to Australia, where the actor was filming “Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales.”
But her testimony was cut shortly after she admitted she had watched part of the trial before taking the stand.
The judge abruptly dismissed her from the witness box and told the jury to disregard her testimony entirely.
Actor Amber Heard listens to her legal team in the courtroom at the Fairfax County Circuit Courthouse in Fairfax, Va. (Shawn Thew/Pool Photo via AP)
A former personal assistant said Amber Heard was often "abusive" and had a "blind rage" in a video deposition played for jurors Thursday in a Virginia courtroom.
Heard's ex-husband, Johnny Depp, is suing her for defamation over a 2018 op-ed that alleged she had been a victim of domestic violence. The piece did not name 58-year-old Depp.
"Her mother was terrified of her," said Kate James, who worked for the "Aquaman" actress from 2012 to 2015. Heard's mom, Paige Parsons, passed away in 2020.
James described Heard as "verbally abusive" to her, her mom and her sister.
Heard, 35, would bombard James in the middle of the night with text messages, she said.
"Between 2 a.m. and 4 a.m. the barrage would start," she testified. "It is what I would wake up to. All incoherent, not really making sense, just someone to lash out at."
During one confrontation over James's salary, Heard went berserk, she said. “She leapt up out of her chair, put her face approximately 4 inches from my face. She was spitting in my face, telling me how dare you ask me for the salary you’re asking for," the ex-staffer recalled.
James described herself as grossly underpaid and said she was later fired because Heard said she could no longer afford her services.
Amber Heard's former personal assistant Kate Anderson (Shawn Thew/Pool Photo via AP)
Amber Heard's former personal assistant said she was paid "very poorly" by the actress in a video deposition played Thursday for jurors in a Virginia courtroom.
Kate James said she worked for the "Aquaman" actress from 2012 to 2015 and her job duties were "too many to mention."
When asked if she was paid, she replied, "Very poorly" and characterized her former employer as demanding. The assistant, who had a decade of experience at the time, was initially paid $25 an hour, she said.
James described Heard as "dramatic" and said she didn't believe Johnny Depp ever abused her.
Depp is suing his his ex-wife for defamation in Fairfax County Circuit Court after she wrote an op-ed piece in The Washington Post in 2018 alleging she was a victim of domestic violence.
She did not mention Depp by name but identified herself as a “public figure representing domestic abuse.”
ECB surveillance video from 2016 (Fox News)
Attorneys on Wednesday presented previously recorded testimony from Brandon Patterson, managing director of the East Columbia Building HOA, where Johnny Depp and Amber Heard lived during their marriage.
Patterson testified that surveillance footage showing police officers entering the building on May 21, 2016, was accurate.
The footage is significant to the trial because it is the day Heard alleges Depp threw a phone at her face.
Johnny Depp's friend Isaac Baruch, who lived in the same apartment building as Depp and Heard when they were married, testified that Amber Heard told him Depp hit her with a phone in 2016.
Baruch allegedly learned that Heard and Depp had been arguing after he saw Heard changing the locks on several apartments in the building with a locksmith.
Heard apparently later told Baruch that Depp "hit" her "with a phone," though Baruch testified that he did not see any bruises, redness, swelling or cuts on her face that day or the following day.
Depp's childhood friend also alleged that he witnessed Heard's sister, Whitney, throw a fake punch toward Heard soon after the phone allegation and said the sisters laughed about it.
Johnny Depp's childhood friend, Isaac Baruch, became the real star of the show Wednesday during Depp's defamation trial against his ex-wife, Amber Heard, as he described his time living in the same building as the "Pirates of the Caribbean" and "Aquaman" stars for more than three years.
Johnny Depp is suing the actress for defamation over an op-ed she wrote for the Washington Post alleging she was the victim of domestic abuse. Heard never identified Depp directly in the piece but wrote that she is "a public figure representing domestic abuse."
Baruch, who took the witness stand after Depp's sister on Wednesday, earned laughs from both Depp and the crowd as he commented on Heard's "great teeth" and makeup, or lack thereof, in a thick New York accent.
Read more here: Johnny Depp, Amber Heard trial day 3: Depp's childhood friend laughs, cries before courtroom
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