At the moment, Johnny Depp and Amber Heard are in the middle of a weeks-long defamation trial, with him suing her after she wrote a 2018 op-ed in The Washington Post where she recounted her experience of suffering through domestic abuse, although she did not name Depp specifically. In order to prove defamation and get the $50 million they’re asking for, Depp and his legal team basically have to do two things: 1) show that what Heard alluded to was not true, e.g. that Depp did not abuse her, and; 2) show that what she wrote hurt Depp’s career.
Per Variety, Depp took the stand the other day to speak to the second point, saying that he would have liked to do another Pirates of the Caribbean movie if not for Heard making him persona non grata at Disney. “My feeling was that these characters should be able to have their proper goodbye,” Depp testified. “There’s a way to end a franchise like that… I planned on continuing until it was time to stop.”
Depp appeared in a total of five Pirates films between 2003’s The Curse of the Black Pearl and 2017’s Dead Men Tell No Tales. Depp said that, after Dead Men, he was approached by the creative team about a sixth movie, a movie that obviously never happened.
Johnny Depp has finished giving his testimony at the defamation trial
On cross-examination, Heard’s lawyer asked about a report in the Daily Mail that indicated Disney had fired Depp due to “financial issues and personal dramas.” That report was from two months before Heard’s op-ed appeared in the Post. “I wasn’t aware of that, but it doesn’t surprise me,” Depp testified. “Two years had gone by of constant worldwide talk about me being this wife beater. So I’m sure that Disney was trying to cut ties to be safe.”
Heard’s team also brought up a comment Depp made about not wanting to do another Pirates film even if Disney paid him “$300 million and a million alpacas.” The actor emphasized that the comment was made well after he had been fired.
“I incorporated my notes into the character and brought that character to life, much to the chagrin of Disney initially,” Depp said of Captain Jack Sparrow last week. “I believed in the character wholeheartedly, and initially, the Disney folks were somewhat upset.”
There was more stuff like this, e.g. Heard’s team brought up a 2015 text where Depp brutally disparaged the Pirates franchise, and Depp answered that he was mad about the shoddy script. And then there’s the other side of the issue: proving that what Heard alluded to in her op-ed wasn’t true. The jury has heard audio clips of the couple engaging in verbal assaults and alluding to physical fights, as when Heard tells Depp to “put your cigarettes out on someone else.”
It’s all very personal and intense, and there’s a lot more to go. Depp has now finished giving testimony while Heard is expected to take the stand later. Witnesses include James Franco, Jason Momoa and Elon Musk.
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