The trial between Amber Heard and Johnny Depp, in which the actor sued his ex-wife for defamation after she wrote an article about domestic violence in the Washington Postcontinues its course. Let’s not forget that it is a very controversial case due to mutual accusations of abuse and lies, but this trial may settle the matter and the truth will prevail.
April 19 marked the fifth day of this legal process (which is broadcast live) and it was a very important day, as the actor finally took the stand and testified before the court and the world, assuring that he had never hit a women.
“There were fights, but I never hit Amber”
Depp touched on several topics, beginning with a defense in which he said that Heard’s accusations towards him came as a true shock for him, for they had no foundation in the truth. The actor assured that at the time he felt very hurt, since he did not want the public to think that he had lied to them.
In addition, he explained the reason for his request. The actor assures that his family suffered the consequences of the alleged lies against him, because his children found out about the accusations and he felt that it was his duty to defend himself and clear his name. For this reason, he says he is not ashamed to sue his ex-wife, since he feels that she is doing the right thing.
It all started like a fairy tale
The actor admitted that his marriage to Heard was not all bad, because they lived years full of happiness and love and at the beginning they were very much in love, in his own words, “it was too good to be true”. However, a year later, everything took a completely different turn.
He opened up about his tough childhood
After this initial defense, he spoke of the physical and emotional abuse he suffered in his childhood at the hands of his mother, since the actor lived a childhood in which violence was his daily bread. In addition, his mother suffered from addiction problems. He remembered that when he was little and saw her mother hit her father, he wondered why her father didn’t leave her.
There was never a time, never a time when my father lost control or attacked my mother or even said something mean to my mother. He stood in front of my mom as she spread the pain and never left her. I, as a five-year-old, wondered: ‘why didn’t my father go away when my mother hit him?’ And I think that stayed.
Years later, this life full of screaming and abuse was too much for Depp’s father, who left his family when the actor was 15 years old. Depp went to look for him at his work and his father told him that now he would be the man of the house. That was a position for which the interpreter of Jack Sparrow admits that he did not feel prepared.
The trauma of her early years did not stop here, since her father’s abandonment plunged her mother into such a deep depression that she tried to take her own life and it was Depp who found her and had to ask for help. In spite of everything, she assures that these types of experiences helped her to realize the kind of father she wanted to be for her children and she knew that she never even wanted to raise her voice with them.
The effect of fame
Another point he touched on was how his fame exploded after Pirates of the Caribbean (franchise that was canceled after Heard’s article was published), because it was when the actor understood that he had become an icon of culture pop.
Although this was wonderful for his career, Depp also felt a certain weight on his shoulders, as he felt that his image already had to be very careful.
I went from being Johnny to being Johnny Depp… With that name a certain image was cultivated. Surely not by me, but by the media. They have to put a label on you and labels are one of the things I’ve fought against.
What does it say about text messages?
Regarding the violent messages he wrote about his ex-wife and sent to his friend Paul Bethany in which he describes wishing that “Amber’s corpse was rotting in the trunk of a Honda Civic”, he assures that he is ashamed to have written them and that the pain he felt made his mind go to dark places.
However, he says that it was black humor and that he was just trying to express what he felt with one of his friends.
the trial continues
There are still many pending issues in this trial, but, without a doubt, Depp’s testimony was one of the key parts for the court and the judge to reach a verdict.
It is not the first time that Heard and Depp have faced each other in court. In addition, the actor sued the newspaper The Sun in the past for referring to him as a “wife beater.” That trial was held in the UK and Depp lost.
Now what everyone hopes is that both parties are heard and justice determines who is right, if one of them has the absolute truth.