Jury shown knife Amber Heard gave Johnny Depp as she says: ‘I wasn’t afraid of him stabbing me’
‘Aquaman’ actress was subjected to tense cross-examination from Johnny Depp’s attorney in the courthouse in Fairfax, Virginia, on Tuesday morning
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Your support makes all the difference.Amber Heard gave Johnny Depp a large knife as a present during the early days of their relationship, jurors were told in the former couple’s high-profile defamation trial.
The Aquaman actress was subjected to tense cross-examination from Mr Depp’s attorney in the courthouse in Fairfax, Virginia, on Tuesday where she was grilled over her allegations that her ex-husband violently abused her on multiple occasions.
Jurors were shown a knife that Ms Heard gave Mr Depp as a gift back in 2012 as the Pirates of the Caribbean actor’s attorney questioned why she would give a weapon to her husband at a time when he was already allegedly abusing her.
Ms Heard claimed that the abuse began early on in their relationship in 2011 before there was “a break” in 2012.
“That’s the knife that you gave to the man who was abusing you?” questioned the attorney.
Ms Heard responded that she didn’t believe he would stab her with a knife.
“I wasn’t afraid of him stabbing me,” she told the court.
The court had previously heard about the knife, which is inscribed with the words “hasta la muerte” – meaning “until death” in Spanish.
Psychologist Dr Daswn Hughes was previously questioned by Mr Depp’s legal team about whether someone who was “afraid for her life” would gift this to their partner.
The doctor told the court that there’s “context” and that she believed Ms Heard bought the knife as “a kind gift”.
“The phraseology is that Mr Depp told her ‘the only way out of this relationship is death’,” Dr Hughes said.
The psychologist said Ms Heard was in “denial” concerning the “ violence in the relationship” at the time.
Mr Depp is suing his ex-wife for defamation over a 2018 op-ed she penned for The Washington Post where she described herself as a “a public figure representing domestic abuse”.
The Pirates of the Caribbean actor is not named in the article, which is titled “I spoke up against sexual violence – and faced our culture’s wrath. That has to change”.
However Mr Depp claims that it falsely implies that he is a domestic abuser – something that he strongly denies – and that it has left him struggling to land roles in Hollywood. He is suing for $50m.
Ms Heard is countersuing for $100m, accusing Mr Depp of orchestrating a “smear campaign” against her and describing his lawsuit as a continuation of “abuse and harassment”.
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