Johnny Depp’s lawyer has revealed the real reason the actor won’t look at his ex-wife Amber Heard in court.
After a week-long break, the actress returned to the witness stand in their highly-publicised libel trial at Fairfax County Courthouse in Virginia on Monday.
Since the trial kicked off last month, people tuning into the live-stream have noticed Johnny’s dedication to not looking at Amber in court, even when she was on the witness stand.
The 58-year-old’s refusal to look at his ex-wife was brought up in court on Monday, as one of his attorneys cross examined the actress.
Camille Vasquez said, “Mr. Depp hasn’t looked at you once this entire trial, has he?” to which Amber replied, “Not that I’ve noticed, no.”
After Johnny’s lawyer continued, “You’ve looked at him many times, haven’t you?” Amber said, “Yes, I have.”
WATCH: #JohnnyDepp’s lawyer questions #AmberHeard about why Depp hasn’t looked at her the whole trial. @LawCrimeNetwork pic.twitter.com/wIPebGoygG
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Ms Vasquez then followed with, “You know exactly why Mr. Depp won’t look back at you, don’t you?”
The actress responded, “I do.”
“He promised you you would never see his eyes again, is that true?” Johnny’s attorney asked, before Amber told the court, “I don’t recall if he said that.”
Vasquez then played an audio recording of the former couple’s final meeting, which took place at a hotel in San Francisco in 2016, after she filed for divorce and obtained a restraining order against him.
In the audio clip, the court heard Amber try to hug Johnny, as she said, “Please I just want to hug you and say bye.”
But the actor refused, and told the actress, “I am nothing to you, and I will always be nothing to you. You will not see my eyes again.”
On day 16 of the trial, Amber detailed multiple incidents of alleged abuse, and told the court: “Violence became normal towards the end [of the relationship with Johnny Depp].”
“It’s hard to say now, but the brain does with trauma what it does – puts it away as best it can.”
Amber recalled one incident that allegedly took place on 21 May 2016, when the actress claims Johnny threw a phone at her face.
The court was shown a series of photos of Amber’s face looking red and blotchy, which were taken by her friend Rocky Pennington and shown to officers as evidence earlier in the trial.
Amber said her friend took the photos after the incident to “protect” her, and said: “We didn’t know what Johnny was going to do, so [Rocky] wanted to protect me.”
Earlier in the trial, Johnny testified that he never hit his ex-wife, and claimed that she was the abuser in their relationship.
The 58-year-old said the allegations he was a “drunken, cocaine-fueled menace who beat women” have cost him “everything”.
The actor launched a $50 million defamation lawsuit against his ex-wife in 2019, after she wrote about being an alleged victim of domestic violence in an op-ed for the Washington Post in December 2018.
While his name was excluded from the piece, Johnny’s legal team have argued that the op-ed implied that he “perpetrated domestic violence against her.”
Amber has countersued Johnny, asking for $100 million and claiming she suffered “rampant physical violence and abuse” at his hands.
Back in November 2020, Johnny lost his highly publicised UK libel lawsuit case against British tabloid The Sun for calling him a “wife-beater.”
The court upheld that the tabloid’s claims were “substantially true,” and Amber testified to back up the claims.
In March 2021, his attempt to overturn the decision was overruled. However, in this case, he is suing Amber directly.
The trial at Fairfax County Courthouse in Virginia is expected to last another two weeks.
Johnny and Amber met in 2009 on the set of the film The Rum Diary, and were married in February 2015.
Their divorce was finalised two years later.
You can watch a live feed of the trial below:
