Johnny Depp ‘sent text about Amber Heard’s rotting corpse’, court hears
Actor Johnny Depp attends his defamation trial with his ex-wife Amber Heard at the Fairfax County Circuit Courthouse on 13 April, 2022. (AFP via Getty/ Pool/ EVELYN HOCKSTEIN)
Johnny Depp once told a friend that he hoped “Amber Heard’s rotting corpse was decomposing” in the trunk of a car, a court has heard.
Depp, 58, is suing his ex-wife Heard, 35, in a $50m (around £38m) defamation trial over an op-ed she wrote for The Washington Post in 2018, accusing him of being abusive.
Heard has filed a countersuit alleging that Depp is running “smear campaign” against her, which she says is a continuation of his “abuse and harassment.”
On Wednesday (13 April) the court in Fairfax, Virginia, heard that Depp had described Heard as a “c**t”, and referred to her “rotting corpse” in text messages to his friend Isaac Baruch.
According to The Independent, Heard’s attorney Elaine Bredehoft questioned Baruch while displaying text messages on a monitor: “Do you recall Mr Depp ever telling you that he hoped that Amber Heard’s rotting corpse is decomposing in the f**king trunk of a Honda Civic?”
“Yeah,” said Baruch. “Well, I say yeah – I’m seeing it here, so obviously, yeah, it was said. It was written.”
Bredehoft also asked if Depp had referred to Heard in texts as a “c**t”, Baruch looked to the monitor again and said: “Well, it’s written there, so yeah, I could see that… He says: ‘That c**t ruined such a f**king cool life we had for a while.'”
The trial continues, and is expected to last six weeks.
Amber Heard accused Johnny Depp of sexually assaulting her with a bottle
In the opening arguments of the defamation trial, Amber Heard’s attorney alleged that Johnny Depp had sexually assaulted her client, claiming he “having “dragged her across the floor” and “penetrated her with a liquor bottle”.
Heard was accused of calling Depp “old and fat”, and Depp’s lawyer Camille Vasquez described her as a “compulsive liar” and “profoundly troubled”. A spokesperson for Depp has denied the sexual assault.
This trial follows a previous libel battle against The Sun in 2020 over an article that labelled Johnny Depp a “wife beater”; after a weeks-long trial in which the court combed through Depp and Heard’s one-year marriage in 2015, Depp lost the case.
The High Court ruled that the paper was able to prove what they reported was true on the balance of probabilities, recognising “overwhelming evidence” that Depp attacked Heard at least 12 times during their relationship.
