- Keeping up with the Nwokos: Regina Daniels confirms warrant on family after brother’s arrest over alleged $40k theft
- Paramount sues in hostile bid to buy Warner Bros Discover
- Oversabi aunty hits 863m in sales, becoming top two highest-grossing titles of 2026
- Funke Akindele’s Behind the Scenes crosses ₦2bn, sets new Nollywood record
“Pirates of the Caribbean” star Johnny Depp physically and sexually abused his then-wife Amber Heard during drug- and alcohol-fueled benders during which he became a “monster,” her lawyers told a court Tuesday.
Depp’s attorneys countered on the opening day of his blockbuster defamation case against Heard that the allegations were untrue and have had a “devastating” impact on his Hollywood career.
[ad]
The 58-year-old Depp filed a defamation suit against 35-year-old Heard after she wrote a column for The Washington Post in December 2018 in which she described herself as a “public figure representing domestic abuse.”
The actress never named Depp, whom she met in 2009 on the set of the film “The Rum Diary,” but he sued her for implying he was a domestic abuser and is seeking $50 million in damages.
Heard, who was married to Depp from 2015 to 2017, countersued, asking for $100 million and claiming she suffered “rampant physical violence and abuse” at his hands.
Elaine Bredehoft, one of Heard’s lawyers, detailed the alleged abuse in her opening statement in Fairfax County Circuit Court.
She told the jury they would be shown graphic photographs. “They show bruises, they show cut lips, they show hair pulled out,” Bredehoft said. “They show two black eyes when he head-butted her.”
“He has an enormous amount of rage,” she said. “It’s during these rages that Mr Depp engaged in verbal, emotional, physical and sexual abuse of Amber.”
“She loved the side of Johnny that we see in the movies — the charismatic one, the charming one, the generous one,” Bredehoft said. “That’s the man she fell in love with.
“The monster would come out when he was drinking and when he would take drugs.”
Ben Rottenborn, another lawyer for Heard, told the jury that “behind the red carpets, behind the fame, behind the money, behind the pirate costumes, you’re going to see who that man really is.”
[ad unit=2]
