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Amber Heard is grilled over alleged attack where Johnny Depp sexually assaulted her with liquor bottle

The former spouses have both given vastly different accounts of the violent incident in Australia in 2015

Rachel Sharp
Tuesday 17 May 2022 11:12 EDT
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Amber Heard is grilled about alleged sexual assault by Johnny Depp

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WARNING: This article contains allegations of physical and sexual violence that some readers may find distressing.

Amber Heard was grilled in court over the alleged violent attack where she accused Johnny Depp of sexually assaulting her with a liquor bottle.

Intense cross-examination resumed in court on Tuesday morning, with Mr Depp’s attorney questioning Ms Heard about a violent incident that took place in Australia in early 2015.

The former spouses have both given vastly different accounts of the incident.

Ms Heard previously testified that her then-husband assaulted her with a glass liquor bottle and how she lay in fear that the glass may have been broken inside of her.

“The next thing I remember, I was bent over backwards on the bar, meaning my chest was up. I was staring at the blue light. My back is on the countertop and I thought he was punching me. I felt this pressure on my pubic bone. I thought he was punching me,” she said in early May.

“I could feel his arm moving and it looked like he was punching me. But I could just feel this pressure.”

Ms Heard said she remembered being still, not wanting to move, looking around the room, and seeing broken bottles and broken glass.

“I remember not wanting to move because I didn’t know of it was broken – I didn’t know if the bottle that he had inside me was broken,” she said.

“I couldn’t feel it. I didn’t feel pain. I didn’t feel pain. I didn’t feel anything. ... I looked around and I saw so much broken glass... I just remember thinking ‘Please God, please. I hope it’s not broken.’”

Mr Depp’s attorney tried to pick apart Ms Heard’s version of events, grilling her about the timeline of the violent incident that night.

“I have never testified to a sequence,” Ms Heard responded.

“He did a lot of things that night.”

Ms Heard was also asked why there were no medical records of the injuries she claims she sustained from the attack. She told the court that she did not seek medical attention for her injuries.

The court heard an audio clip of Mr Depp and Ms Heard speaking about the incident in Australia.

In the clip, Mr Depp is heard saying he went into five rooms in the house to try to get away from his spouse, likening it to a break in a boxing match.

“A boxer needs a break, and can’t go 12 rounds,” Mr Depp is heard saying.

“You weren’t scared of him at all were you?” questioned the attorney.

Ms Heard replied: “This was a man who tried to kill me. Of course I was scared but he was also my husband.”

The actress later told the court that despite the violent attack she didn’t feel she had “the power to leave” her husband.

“I very much wanted to leave the relation ship I was in but I didn’t think I had the power to leave,” she said.

“I knew I was in a very toxic relationship with Johnny.”

Mr Depp has instead claimed that Ms Heard abused him that night and cut off the tip of his finger with a bottle.

During his testimony he said that Ms Heard was hurling glass bottles in his direction.

He alleged that one of the bottles “made contact” with him and “shattered everywhere”.

“I didn’t feel the pain at first at all,” he said. “I felt no pain whatsoever. I felt heat and I felt as if something were dripping down my hand. And then I looked down and realized that the tip of my finger had been severed, and I was looking directly at my bones sticking out.”

Mr Depp said “blood was just pouring out” and that the incident was “probably the closest that I’ve ever been” to having a nervous breakdown.

“Nothing made sense. I knew in my mind and in my heart, this is not life, this is not life. No one should have to go through this,” he said.

“And as I said, this feeling of being in the middle of some sort of nervous breakdown, I started to write in my own blood on the walls little reminders from our past that essentially represented lies that she had told me, and lies that I had caught her in.”

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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