Johnny Depp was intensely questioned by Amber Heard’s lawyers, as the cross examination in the Pirates of the Caribbean star’s defamation trial against his ex-wife continued on Thursday April 21. The actor said that he’d “vehemently disagrees” that he’d head butted Amber during a December 2015 altercation, when Amber’s lawyer Ben Rottenborn asked about the incident.
The lawyer asked if he agreed if there’d been a head butt, to which Johnny responded, “No, I would vehemently disagree with that, sir,” he said, before giving more context to the incident, including showing how he’d tried to restrain her. “I was trying to restrain Ms. Heard and once I had restrained her, I would say if she’s trying to still move around and kick at me or trying to get loose, any sort of movement when you’re like this and your heads are this close together, it’s not impossible for them to bump, but a head butt is a pretty extreme definition of that.”
After Johnny’s response, they played an audio recording of Johnny and Amber talking. ” “I head butted you in the f**king… forehead. That doesn’t break a nose,” he could be heard saying in the recording. After the lawyer asked Johnny to confirm what was said in the recording, he confirmed, but he also stood by that he hadn’t intentionally head butted her. “I was using the words that Ms. Heard was using, but there was not an intentional head butt,” he said. “If you want to have a peaceful conversation with Ms. Heard, you might have to placate just a little bit.”
The cross examination began towards the end of the day on Wednesday April 20, after Johnny wrapped up his testimony. During his lengthy address to the court, Johnny shared many details of his upbringing (including his relationship with his parents) and his marriage to Amber. He continued to dispute the claims that he’d abused the Aquaman actress throughout his testimony. “There were arguments and things of that nature, but never did myself reach the point of striking Ms. Heard in anyway, nor have I struck anyone in my life,” he said.
Besides pushing back on the accusations of abuse, Johnny has also claimed that he turned to substance use amid the many arguments with Amber, although he said that Amber had been “brutish” in telling him to stop drinking. “I was more inspired by Ms Heard to reach out for a numbing agent because of the constant clashes,” he said. “I had to have something to distance me and distance my heart from those verbal attacks. I had to have something to be able to maintain me. Because I didn’t want to rock the boat as it were. Again, you pick your battles. So placation seemed the best route if I was unable to escape her clutches.”
Other than Johnny’s allegations of verbal abuse, he also detailed one of the most shocking claims of a physical altercation, with an incident where he alleged that Amber severed a part of his middle finger when she threw a vodka bottle at him. He said that Amber had thrown two vodka bottles at him during an argument: one that had missed and one that hit him. “I looked down, and realized the tip of my finger had been severed, and I was looking directly at bones sticking out and the meaty portion of your inside of your finger, and blood was just pouring out,” he said.