Amber Heard breaks down on the stand, claims Johnny Depp penetrated her with liquor bottle
WARNING: This story includes details that are graphic in nature about sexual violence and may be disturbing to some readers.
Amber Heard testified for a second day telling the jury in graphic detail how she was allegedly beaten by Johnny Depp and sexually assaulted with a liquor bottle. The 36-year-old actress spoke about multiple alleged incidents of abuse on Thursday, but the most disturbing story was from the pair's Australia trip in March 2015.
The Aquaman star was emotional all day, but broke down on the stand when she was asked to tell the jury about Depp allegedly penetrating her with a bottle during a drug-fueled rampage.
"I can't believe I have to," she sobbed.
"I'm so sorry," Heard's attorney, Elaine Bredehof, replied.
"Johnny had the bottle inside of me and was shoving it inside of me over, and over again," Heard told the court.
Depp has vehemently denied Heard's claims of domestic violence and sexual assault. His spokesperson issued a statement after court about her "convoluted testimony."
"As Mr. Depp's counsel correctly predicted in their opening statements last month, Ms. 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," Depp's spokesperson tells Yahoo Entertainment. "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."
On Thursday, Heard testified that while in Australia where Depp was filming the fifth Pirates of the Caribbean movie, she was abused for days. The actress said that before she arrived, she and Depp fought as he accused her of having an affair with actor Eddie Redmayne. (Heard and Redmayne were filming The Danish Girl.)
"All I wanted to do was see my new husband," she said. When she arrived, she knew something was wrong. "He'd lost a ton of weight so I just knew something was up."
Heard said Depp did MDMA the first night, denying his claim that he secured the drugs at her request. A fight broke out about his supposed substance use.
"He shoves me up against the fridge. He has me by the throat and he just was holding me there by my throat and I wondered if it was the drugs, I wondered if it was him," she said, claiming he was "bashing me against the wall next to the fridge."
Heard admitted to "screaming at" Depp and that she "slapped him across the face" before barricading herself upstairs. She eventually took medication and went to bed. The next morning, Heard said she walked downstairs and Depp "was still up."
"He had not slept, he had not eaten. I tried to get him to eat. We get in an argument," she recalled, claiming Depp accused her of having an affair with Redmayne and her former co-stars, Billy Bob Thornton and Jim Sturgess. She testified Depp took "either 8 or 10 pills of MDMA."
"He was just belligerent, throwing things, screaming at me," Heard explained. She told the jury she couldn't recall how "the next part of the violence" was "even initiated."
"Again he has me up against the wall... I hit my head hard," Heard testified. "I remember pushing him off of me. I remember the name calling — 'whore, slut, fat ass.'"
Heard claimed Depp was "squeezing my neck, it got really nasty."
"At some point I shoved him hard to get him off me," she recalled. "He said, 'You wanna go little girl?'"
Heard said Depp was "taunting" her with a liquor bottle. She finally got ahold of it and "slammed it down right on the ground."
"That really set him off. So stupid," Heard emotionally recounted. "It was like a lightbulb switch went off. He starts screaming. I don't know if he backhanded me or hit me normally."
Heard said she flew to the ground and Depp started smashing liquor bottles all over the place.
"At some point he had a broken bottle up against my face," she said. "He told me he'd carve up my face... it was terrifying."
Heard, who was in a nightgown, said she was trapped and Depp grabbed her "slamming me from the wall to the countertop."
"I remember at one point he's teasing me, taunting me he has my breast in his hand. My nightgown came completely off, it was ripped off of me. I was naked and slipping around on this tile and trying to get my footing," Heard testified. "He's flinging me around, at some point I'm up against the wall, he's screaming at me that he f****** hates me, that I ruined his life... he starts punching the wall next to my head, holding me by the neck... I have never been so scared in my life."
Heard said she "couldn't get through" to Depp and that his eyes were "black." What happened next, according to the actress, is disturbing.
"The next thing I remember, I was bent over backwards on the bar meaning my chest was up," she said through tears. "I could feel this pressure on my pubic bone."
Heard remembered "being really still, not wanting to move."
"I remember looking around the room, I remember looking at all the broken bottles, broken glass... I didn't know if the bottle he had inside me was broken, I couldn't feel it, I couldn't feel pain," she emotionally declared. "I looked around and I saw so much broken glass that I didn't know if he would know if it was broken or not, and I just remember thinking, 'Please God please, I hope it's not broken.'"
Heard said she can't remember how the assault ended.
"I don't know how I got off the countertop. I just remember being in the bathroom. I remember retching, I remember the sound my voice was making, I remember I lost control of my bladder, I remember just retching. I remember there was some blood on the floor. I got up at some point," she testified. "I don't know how that night ended. I don't remember what happened."
During the alleged sexual assault, Heard claimed Depp said, "I'll f****** kill you."
"He said it to me over and over again," she testified, saying she bled. Heard told the court she "wasn't thinking about" the pain at the time.
"I was heartbroken. Eventually I realized I could be hurt because I was bleeding, but I convinced myself... the bottle wasn't broken and the discomfort I was feeling afterwards just paled in comparison to how scared, shocked I was," Heard explained. "I just married this man."
Heard said she took two sleeping pills and when she awoke on day three, she found Depp still awake, blaring Marilyn Manson music. He was injured.
"I saw this brown on the walls going down the stairs... it was obvious it was dried blood," she said. "There was blood on the carpet, I could see blood drips. I thought it was from my arms or feet."
When Heard located Depp, his hand was wrapped in rags. She claimed he said something like "Look what you made me do, I did this for you."
Depp testified his finger was severed when Heard threw liquor bottles at him. Photos of the Australia house were shown in court and while some of the destruction is visible, it's not as demolished as one might expect. The actress said she thinks rooms were cleaned up before the pictures were taken.
The bar area where #JohnnyDepp says #AmberHeard threw a vodka bottle and severed his finger and the same bar area where #AmberHeard says he sexually assualted her with a bottle. @LawCrimeNetwork pic.twitter.com/lDOPA1jrDi
— Cathy Russon (@cathyrusson) May 5, 2022
Heard left Australia, but not Depp. They reconciled and the actress recounted three more allegations of very violent abuse. One was two weeks later, where she said a fight ensued when she discovered he cheated on her after finding texts on his iPad.
"He was texting this woman that he had a [sexual] relationship with on and off kind of at the beginning of our relationship, so I recognized the name, but the date was right after the wedding. I saw he had gone to her house after we got married," Heard said.
"I freaked out. I immediately confronted him about it. I didn't care in that moment if he did kill me, which was likely confronting him at that stage of our lives. I didn't even care anymore," Heard claimed. "He had already ripped my heart out."
Amid the fighting, Heard said her sister Whitney "put herself between Johnny and I."
"I see my little sister with her back to the staircase... I don't hesitate, I don't wait, I just instantly think of Kate Moss and stairs and I swung at him," Heard said, referring to a rumor that there was violence in Depp and Moss's relationship.
Heard admitted to punching Depp.
"I hadn't landed a blow and for the first time I hit him, like actually hit him, square in the face. He didn't push my sister down the stairs," she told the jury.
Whitney is expected to testify later in the trial. Depp's bodyguard who witnessed the altercation previously testified that the actor never shoved Whitney as Heard has suggested. He spoke about Heard giving Depp a "nice little shiner" and that the Depp never physically attacked Heard during the incident.
Heard testified about an alleged brutal fight in Dec. 2015 where she said she passed out in the middle of Depp's attack. She claimed he even broke the bed while he was on top of her. Several photos were shown of the actress's apparent injuries.
#AmberHeard says these are photos of her and clumps of her hair after the ECB incident in Dec. 2015. #JohnnyDepp @LawCrimeNetwork pic.twitter.com/yefhpqQyUk
— Angenette Levy (@Angenette5) May 5, 2022
Heard said she ultimately reconciled with Depp and even went on a trip to the Bahamas with him and his kids two weeks later. While on the island, she alleged she was abused and sexually assaulted after she upset the actor.
"He grabbed me... shoved his fingers inside me, but through my bathing suit," Heard testified, adding that Depp "just kind of held me there." Depp purportedly yelled, "You think you're so f****** tough, now what?"
A spokesperson for Heard issued the following statement on Thursday evening:
As evidenced by the statement just released, Mr. Depp's defamation claim is falling apart so rapidly that his counsel are turning from prosecutor to persecutor.
They boast that Mr. Depp's story has not changed. If so, since he lost the Domestic Violence Restraining Order and he resoundingly lost the libel case in the UK, perhaps he should consider a new strategy rather than the recycled approach of attacking the victim, and refusing to take responsibility for his own conduct.
If Mr. Depp was truly innocent, why has he repeatedly apologized to Ms. Heard and promised to put the 'monster away for good.' One of Ms. Heard's disappointments is Mr. Depp's inability to distinguish fact from fiction — a malady which appears to have spread to his legal team. That same team is so panicked they are fighting tooth and nail to prevent compelling evidence and photos from being introduced. Small wonder Mr. Depp does not have the fortitude or courage to even look at Ms. Heard at all throughout the proceedings — as he could not in the UK trial - and, instead he doodles and snickers.
Mr. Depp's behavior in this trial has been as pitiful as it was in their marriage. Apparently, they feel they must double-down on their demonstrably losing two-part strategy: distract the jury and demonize the victim.
Throughout Heard's testimony on Wednesday, Depp kept his head down and made it a point never to look at his ex-wife. Midway through the day on Thursday, it appears the two finally locked eyes.
??BIG MOMENT?? #JohnnyDepp and #AmberHeard appear to make eye contact in court today. WATCH ?? (via @cathyrusson, @LawCrimeNetwork) pic.twitter.com/fftTgw2bDZ
— Sierra Gillespie (@sierragillespie) May 5, 2022
Court is adjourned until Monday, May 16 where Heard is expected to finish testifying and face cross-examination from Depp's legal team.
If you or someone you know has been sexually assaulted, help is available. RAINN’s National Sexual Assault Hotline is here for survivors 24/7 with free, anonymous help. 800.656.HOPE (4673) and online.rainn.org.
MORE: Johnny Depp's bodyguard testifies Amber Heard punched, spit on actor in 2015 fight