Amber Heard said on Thursday that she had received “thousands” of death threats since the start of her trial once morest her ex-husband, Johnny Depp, who is suing her for defamation in US court.
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“I receive hundreds of death threats regularly, even every day, thousands since the start of this trial,” said the 36-year-old actress, called to the stand during the last day of hearing witnesses.
Lawyers for both sides are due to present their closing arguments on Friday, and the seven jurors will then retire to deliberate. If they do not reach a verdict during the day, they will continue their deliberations next Tuesday.
“I am harassed, humiliated, threatened every day, just because I am in this courtroom”, said Amber Heard, very moved.
“People laugh at my testimony regarding the assaults, people want to kill me, they tell me every day, they want to put my baby in the microwave and they tell me,” said the actress, mother of a little girl.
“Every day I have to relive the trauma” of domestic violence, she said, referring to those she claims to have suffered during her relationship with Johnny Depp.
The trial “was the most excruciating, painful and humiliating thing I have ever had to experience,” she said.
These six weeks of debates have brought to light the sordid details of a relationship enamelled by disputes and, according to Amber Heard, violence when Johnny Depp was under the influence of a cocktail of drugs and alcohol.
The actress, who appeared in Justice League et Aquaman, has been the subject of a campaign of denigration and insults on social networks since the start of this ultra-mediatized trial in the court of Fairfax, near Washington.
Every day, hundreds of Johnny Depp fans gather outside the building’s entrance and in the courtroom to show their support for the star of Pirates of the Caribbean.
The hushed atmosphere that has prevailed in this room since April 11 was disrupted on Thursday, following a heated exchange between Amber Heard and Johnny Depp’s lawyer, by comments from members of the public quickly reprimanded by the judge, Penney Azcarate, who threatened to continue the trial behind closed doors.
Johnny Depp is suing Amber Heard for defamation, who described herself in a column published in the Washington Post in 2018 as “a public figure representing domestic violence” suffered two years earlier, without naming her ex-husband.
The 58-year-old actor claims to have never hit a woman and denounces “mind-boggling” accusations. He claims 50 million dollars in damages, believing that this platform has ruined his reputation and his career.
The actress counterattacked and asked for the double, saying that this complaint is an extension of a campaign of “harassment” which put her career on hold.
In 2020, Johnny Depp lost a first defamation lawsuit in London once morest the British tabloid The Sunwho had called him an “abusive husband”.
This trial is “an echo from the other room [d’audience] in which he dragged me,” said Amber Heard, referring to the London trial.
She repeated that she suffered “verbal, physical, emotional and psychological abuse” from Johnny Depp during their relationship, between 2011 and 2016.
“I am not a saint,” she said when referring to her first testimony, ten days ago, when she admitted to hitting her ex-husband at least once.
She explained that she wrote this forum on domestic violence “to bring these issues to light, to give a voice to people who do not have one”.
In May 2016, Amber Heard had obtained from a court a removal order once morest her husband for domestic violence, following a year of marriage. Their divorce was finalized in early 2017.
“I have the right to tell my story, I have the right to say what happened” and to “tell my own story and my truth”, she asserted, accusing Johnny Depp of having promised to destroy [sa] career” and to subject him to “global humiliation”.
