Johnny Depp has taken the stand in the defamation trial against his ex-wife Amber Heard.
The actor entered the witness booth on the fifth day of the trial, which began on Monday 11 April in Fairfax, Virginia following Mr Depp’s lawsuit against Ms Heard in March 2019. Mr Depp is arguing that she defamed him in a December 2018 op-ed published in The Washington Post titled “I spoke up against sexual violence — and faced our culture’s wrath. That has to change”.
Mr Depp’s security guard Sean Bett and his sound engineer Keenan Wyatt testified just ahead of the actor.
In her 2018 op-ed, Ms Heard partly wrote that “like many women, I had been harassed and sexually assaulted by the time I was of college age. But I kept quiet — I did not expect filing complaints to bring justice. And I didn’t see myself as a victim”.
“Then two years ago, I became a public figure representing domestic abuse, and I felt the full force of our culture’s wrath for women who speak out,” she added at the time.
While Mr Depp isn’t named in the piece, his legal team argues that it contains a “clear implication that Mr Depp is a domestic abuser”, which they say is “categorically and demonstrably false”. Mr Depp is seeking damages of “not less than $50m”.
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