Johnny Depp’s $50 million defamation trial against ex-wife Amber Heard is set to resume Monday after a weeklong recess.
When the trial reconvenes May 16 in Fairfax, Virginia, Depp’s legal team will cross-examine Heard about her tumultuous 15-month marriage to Depp.
Depp’s business manager, Ed White, told the jury of six men and three women Depp paid over $14 million in their divorce settlement after Heard’s financial demands “continually increased” during negotiations.
The talks started at $4 million and eventually grew to the sizable figure, with $6.8 million paid to Heard, $500,000 to her lawyers and about $7,250,000 to the couple’s “community liabilities.”
The world now watches two actors in action in real time.
Depp, 58, has said he filed the $50 million defamation claim against his ex-wife, 36, to “clear his name” and recoup potential earnings he claims he lost from Hollywood due to Heard’s allegations.
Once considered a role model by many as Disney character Jack Sparrow, Depp’s career could be on the brink of collapse.
Depp’s legal team will likely be pulling out all the stops in an effort to discredit Heard at every turn during cross-examination.
While many in the court of public opinion have already taken sides, there’s no disputing the A-listers’ relationship was a toxic one.
Here are the trial’s biggest bombshells and observations from the Fox News Digital newsroom.
Johnny Depp’s voice
Despite being born in Kentucky, growing up in Florida and, at one point, moving to France, some observers have been perplexed by Depp’s British-sounding accent during testimony.
But testimony from Depp’s sister about their difficult childhoods seemed to add credibility to Depp’s testimony.
Johnny Depp’s doodles
Depp appeared to have no interest listening to testimony from his ex-wife. He was seen numerous times passing time by doodling in a sketch pad and passing drawings to his attorney.
In a viral video shared last month on YouTube by Entertainment Tonight, the “Pirates of the Caribbean” star sketched what appeared to be a portrait of a woman and showed it off to his lawyer, Benjamin Chew.
Chew nodded approvingly and put his hand to his heart “like a proud dad,” one Twitter user wrote.
“I bet he took straight home and stuck it to the fridge with a star shaped magnet,” responded another Twitter user.
Fifty shades of Heard
Prior to taking the stand, Heard was captured in courtroom photos winking at her attorney Elaine Bredehoft as the trial broke for lunch April 18.
In other instances, Heard delivered a hardened stare at Depp as he gave his side of the story on the stand. She also appeared to have heeded advice from critics who blasted her outfit selection for court.
Heard drew ire from Depp fans during her testimony. Many took to social media criticizing her testimony as overdramatic.
One behavioral analyst observed that Heard wore a Gucci tie and pin just two days after Depp wore a Gucci tie and pin, calling the move a “power play” in an attempt to possibly one-up her ex-husband’s style.
During her initial testimony, Heard described an alleged sexual assault that took place over the course of a three-day fight between the couple in Australia in 2015.
Depp’s team has vehemently denied he ever sexually assaulted Heard.
A spokesperson for Depp said in a statement Heard “did indeed deliver the performance of her life in her direct examination.”
“While Ms. Heard’s stories have continued to grow new and convenient details, Mr. Depp’s recollections have remained exactly the same throughout the six painful years since her first allegations were made,” the spokesperson said. “His truth — the truth — is the same no matter the environment in which it is has been presented.
“The upcoming cross-examination from Mr. Depp’s team will be most telling and will certainly highlight the many fallacies Ms. Heard has now attempted to pass off as fact throughout her convoluted testimony.”
Blunt witness testimony from Depp’s vaping doorman
The couple’s former doorman, Alejandro Romero, seemed to steal the show when he provided testimony about what he observed from the couple after the infamous cellphone fight of May 21, 2016, during an explosive confrontation inside their penthouse apartment.
Romero and two responding police officers said they saw “no marks or bruises” on Heard’s face.
The building employee testified via video that he often saw Elon Musk at least “a few times a week” at Depp’s penthouse in 2015. The SpaceX founder “always visited when Mr. Depp was not at home,” Alejandro Romero added under oath.
Sitting in a parked car and puffing on a vape pen during the deposition, Romero admitted he was sick of the Depp-Heard saga.
“I’m tired. I don’t want to deal with this court case anymore. Everybody’s got problems,” Romero said before driving off in his vehicle as attorney questioning had drawn to a close.
Rottenborn shows this pic taken in March of 2013 when “you had fallen off the wagon, correct?”#JohnnyDepp #AmberHeard @LawCrimeNetwork pic.twitter.com/acH1OrrQRR
— Cathy Russon (@cathyrusson) April 21, 2022
Happy hour
During Depp’s testimony, jurors were shown a photo taken in Amber Heard’s house in Los Angeles one morning in March 2013.
The image shows two glasses of whiskey and four lines of cocaine next to a box with a skull and crossbones and Depp’s initials on it.
“You’d sometimes drink whiskey in the morning?” Heard’s attorney Ben Rottenborn asked during cross-examination.
“Isn’t happy hour any time?” Depp replied, prompting a few awkward laughs in the courtroom.
Depp initially denied using the pictured box for cocaine. But Rottenborn confronted him with testimony from his 2020 libel trial against “The Sun” newspaper for branding him a wife beater, when he admitted to using the box to carry cocaine.
Depp lost the London case.
Happy hour
During Depp’s testimony, jurors were shown a photo taken in Amber Heard’s house in Los Angeles one morning in March 2013.
The image shows two glasses of whiskey and four lines of cocaine next to a box with a skull and crossbones and Depp’s initials on it.
“You’d sometimes drink whiskey in the morning?” Heard’s attorney Ben Rottenborn asked during cross-examination.
“Isn’t happy hour any time?” Depp replied, prompting a few awkward laughs in the courtroom.
Depp initially denied using the pictured box for cocaine. But Rottenborn confronted him with testimony from his 2020 libel trial against “The Sun” newspaper for branding him a wife beater, when he admitted to using the box to carry cocaine.
Depp lost the London case.
Depp recalls defecation incident
Last month, during Depp’s direct testimony, he recounted the infamous defecation incident that has been the talk of social media.
After a blowup on Heard’s 30th birthday in 2016, Depp said he retreated to their Los Angeles home.
He planned to return to pick up a few items while Heard was at Coachella, but his security warned him against it and showed him a photograph of their bed.
“On my side of the bed was human fecal matter,” Depp recalled. “I laughed. It was so outside, it was so bizarre and so grotesque that I could only laugh.”
Depp has previously accused Heard or one of her friends of defecating in the bed. But Heard has denied it, blaming the feces on her teacup Yorkies.
“I lived with those dogs for many years,” Depp said. “That did not come from a dog. It just didn’t.”
Story cited here.
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