In case you’ve been living under a rock, the defamation suit trial for Johnny Depp & Amber Heard began on April 11, 2022. Since that day we’ve watched multiple witnesses stand up and testify as to their experiences with JD (Johnny Depp) & AH (Amber Heard), including themselves. JD is suing AH $50million dollars in respect to an op-ed that she wrote for the Washington Post in 2018. You can read that here. JD claims that because of AH’s op-ed in which she without naming, but alluding to allegedly experienced physical and sexual violence at the hands of JD. Following this op-ed he alleges that he was removed from his character role as Jack Sparrow in the Pirates of the Caribbean, as well as multiple other movie / film roles. She is in turn countersuing him for $100million.
In the first half of the trial we heard hours of testimony, including JD’s account of his childhood abuse at the hands of his own mother, AH’s account of the abuse at the hands of JD, expert witnesses examining AH’s mental health, and multiple witnesses that were around the couple at the times of the alleged abuse against AH, none of which testify to ever seeing bruises or signs of physical abuse on her body.
It’s easy to assume that we are all simply standing up for our cherished actor JD, but when you truly listen to the testimony, read the evidence sheets, and consider all the facts that have been sworn to under oath, the alleged abuse just doesn’t seem to exist. AH has taken the stand and changed parts of her story or doesn’t seem to remember all the facts of what took place. We can absolutely say that if a person has suffered at the hands of domestic violence or trauma, there’s certainly spaces that go “dark” so to speak, as if the brain is simply trying to forget the pain. But AH’s testimony is not consistent and while she remembers very detailed info like how dirty the carpet was parts of her stories get intertwined. I cannot possibly get into all of the testimony for each witness but to give a “Season 1” recap, I am going to touch on some things that I found most interesting throughout various witness testimonies. I had hoped that I could put all of these testimony thoughts into one article, but there is so much that I’ll be breaking it into multiple pieces.
If you would like to listen / watch back any of the previous testimonies, all live content is saved on Law & Crime Youtube Channel and evidence is on the Fairfax County website.
Gina Deuters
Gina Deuters is a close friend of JD & wife of a JD staff member. Gina was called to testify on April 14th as to his drug and alcohol abuse, relationship with JD & AH, and whether she had ever seen JD physically abuse AH. She testified that she had never seen JD be violent or abusive after drinking or abusing drugs. At one point during the testimony, AH’s camp (camp to be known as her attorneys, PR, friends, etc.) asked to approach the bench. The Judge then had a discussion with the attorneys and shortly thereafter sent the jury for a brief recess, at which point she asked Ms. Deuters if she had been watching the trial online prior to her testimony. Ms. Deuters, speaking her truth under oath, admitted that she had seen a few clips here and there (big no no as all witnesses and jury members are permitted from outside influences to the trial). The Judge indicated that Ms. Deuters was to step off the stand and no longer a viable witness and her testimony was struck from Court records.
Here’s the twist….
Enter Eve Barlow, close friend of AH and journalist. Ms. Barlow had been seated behind AH for the trial in support of her friend. It was brought to the Court’s attention that Ms. Barlow had been texting and tweeting from the Courtroom. She was removed and banned from entering the Court for the remainder of the trial. But what does Eve have to do with Gina? Reports say that Ms. Barlow had tweeted an Instagram post from Ms. Deuters in 2021 claiming that it was current. The screenshot had not included the date of the original post. The post in fact, was not from the current trial wherein Ms. Deuters described a “few wins” for JD in Court, rather it was from the UK trial when JD had filed sued against The Sun tabloid for publishing “Johnny Depp is a Wife Beater” following AH’s allegations. Eve had doctored the photo, shared it with AH’s camp and therefor had Ms. Deuters stricken from the record and unable to testify in support of JD.
This was the beginning of multiple questionable acts amongst AH’s camp (attorneys, friends & PR included).
Kate James, Personal Assistant to AH
Ms. James worked as a personal assistant to AH from 2012-2015. During a previously taped deposition, Ms. James testified that AH would verbally abuse her on multiple occasions over minor issues. She would also receive abusive and threatening text messages from AH during the middle of the night. The most shocking of the testimony: that AH had “stolen” her sexual abuse story. AH alleges that JD sexually assaulted her with a bottle of liquor during an altercation in Australia. Ms. James claims that she had told AH of her own sexual assault story 26 years prior and AH had taken the same details that she was told by Ms. James, and twisted them as her own.
House Managers, Friends, Security Team, Police Officers
There have been multiple testimonies given by staff that worked for and alongside JD and AH. Consistently they have all testified that while there were many arguments and altercations between the two, no one ever saw JD physically abuse AH. However according to the testimony of Travis McGivern, AH had been physical with JD by throwing a can of Red Bull at him and hitting him with a closed fist in the face (more on that later).
Multiple police officers that were called to investigate during an alleged domestic dispute testified under recorded deposition. The Court was shown body cam footage of one of the calls wherein AH and her friends were on the couch and didn’t know who had called them or why and that everything was fine. Two other officers testified that there were no signs of domestic abuse, that AH did not want to file a report and because there were no visible injuries or issues within the home, they closed the case and left.
Dr Shannon Curry
This woman *Standing Ovation*….
Dr. Shannon Curry is a clinical and forensic psychologist in California and Hawaii. As a psychologist with 15 years experience in research, therapy and evaluations in trauma, violence & relationships, she was called by JD’s camp to testify as an expert witness. Dr. Curry evaluated AH and diagnosed her with Borderline and Histrionic Personality Disorders.
Dr. Curry fielded questions from both sides about why and how she came to those diagnoses as well as a futile attempt from AH’s camp to make her look bad by accusing her of being unethical. One having been served dinner and drinks by JD’s camp during her initial interview and second that she had told her husband that she was evaluating AH.
“Why did your husband get the muffins for Amber Heard?” attorney Elaine Bredehoft asked Dr Curry.
“He did not get the muffins for Amber Heard,” she said.
“He knew you had a high-profile client and you were preparing for a very long time and you asked him to pick up the muffins, correct?” Ms Bredehoft asked.
“I asked him to pick up the muffins for me, yes,” Dr Curry said.
“You brought muffins, from your husband, and you gave those to Ms Heard, correct?” Ms Bredehoft asked at one point during the cross-examination.
“May I clarify what occurred so that we can stop talking about the muffins?” Dr Curry said. “What happened was that I was getting ready that morning, I frequently bring muffins to the office. My husband did happen to know that there was going to be a celebrity client coming in because on the morning that that occurs, which often occurs, we have to actually clear the office and move the staff to the other office.”
Dr. Curry went on to explain that yes, her husband brought them in because she was running late and she asked him to drop them off to stay on time rather than being late for her appointment.
Key elements from her testimony:
BPD sufferers “not knowing who they are in this world… shifting personalities of those around them… picking up hobbies of those around them… dressing similar to those around them…” It’s been no secret on social media and in front of our faces that AH has mimicked the wardrobe choices of JD throughout this trial. The kicker for me was the day she started wearing glasses when JD put his on on the stand. She has zero sense of identity of who she is and clings to others.
Importance of emotional reactivity when feelings of abandonment are coming on such as getting angry, getting physical when they think that their partner is leaving them. Noting that physical injury of themselves may occur while they are physically trying to keep someone they love from leaving them. JD has testified on numerous occasions that he would try to leave the room during verbal altercations and she would not allow him to leave.
We stan for Dr. Shannon Curry. This entire testimony, both direct and cross in my opinion, was a solid gold for JD’s team. Dr. Curry speaks and explains her terms precisely and in a way that the jury could follow easily and never shifted to and from her notes (unlike the other expert witness hired by AH’s camp). I highly encourage you take the time to watch Dr. Curry’s testimony here if you haven’t. We may see her again as she is a witness subject to recall.
Alternatively I felt that AH’s expert witness Dr. Dawn Hughes (also known to my IG fam as, Dr Not Curry Hughes because Elaine called her own expert witness, Dr. Curry on two separate occasions) was not nearly as strong as Dr. Curry’s. I do not feel that she did AH’s camp any good. She spent a lot of time referring to her notes, which is not allowed, confusing not only me as a viewer but I’m sure the jury, and very argumentative to get her point across. She disagreed with Dr. Curry about the diagnoses and basically said that she only took into consideration the notes and evaluations from doctors that fit her narrative of post traumatic stress.
Entertainment Executives, Attorneys, Managers
These testimonies all pretty much laid out the foundation that JD lost a substantial amount of money (which is the reason for this lawsuit, lets not forget that it is not a criminal trial) due to the allegations made by AH in the Washington Post op-ed. The one thing that is difficult to lay out on testimony is did JD lose Pirates solely because of the op-ed? If the jury believes that is true, that’s where JD ultimately wins the suit because the majority of his earnings would have come from the movie itself as well as any merch, appearances, royalties, etc. The problem is, there was no set in writing contract stating exactly how much JD would have made as Jack Sparrow in Pirates 6. There is only one person that could testify to that and that is Jerry Bruckheimer for Disney, who has not been called to testify. We could speculate that there had been a conversation prior to the op-ed being published that JD would no longer be Jack Sparrow which would not bode well for JD in this trial obviously. We likely won’t hear from him, but he is the man with the final say on JD’s future with Pirates of the Caribbean.
Alejandro Romero
Alejandro Romero, a doorman at the Eastern Columbian building that JD owned and lived in quickly became a fan favorite with his recorded deposition from his van. Alejandro testified to not ever seeing bruises or any signs of physical abuse on AH but quite frankly, you just have to watch his testimony during cross examination because it is golden. Also, go follow him on TikTok.
Terence Dougherty, Attorney for ACLU
Terence Dougherty is an attorney for the ACLU (American Civil Liberties Union). With Mr. Dougherty’s testimony we learned that not only did their staff co-write the op-ed in question, but they did it with the understanding that AH was going to be their new face of women in domestic violence. The ACLU signed AH as an ambassador to share her story as a survivor of domestic abuse. With that agreement, AH pledged to donate $3.5million to the ACLU. While all parties were co-writing, revising and publishing the op-ed there were email communications claiming that the op-ed may not “hit as hard” if they don’t use JD’s name, but ultimately took it out so that it didn’t violate their non-disclosure agreement in their divorce and made reference to the marriage instead. However, they knew full and well that everyone that read it would know that AH was alleging abuse against JD even without saying his name.
What became even more interesting was when Mr. Dougherty testified that AH had pledged to donate $3.5million (1/2 of her $7million settlement following her divorce from JD). However, as of the time of Mr. Dougherty’s recorded deposition, only a total of $1.3million had been donated on her behalf. This included $100K directly from JD (which AH was unhappy about, mainly a dig from him saying “ok you’re going to donate it, I’ll donate it for you”) and $500K from an account associated with Elon Musk (enter Elon Musk. There’s a lot going on with AH and Elon, but more to come on that in another post).
He also testified that the ACLU wanted the op-ed to come out around the same time as the movie Aquaman in which AH was starring. This is important because quite frankly, no one would know who she was without a big name movie behind her when the op-ed was published.
This is pretty damning testimony for AH when it comes to the op-ed. Mr. Dougherty testifies to the email communications in reference to JD and it’s important to note that with this defamation trial, there has to be proof and understanding that the op-ed was written about him abusing her. So not only did that proof come from this testimony, but also shed light on the fact that she was lying with her pledge to donate. If she could lie to a civil liberties union, what else could she be lying about?
Part 2 of Season 1
As much as I would love to continue on in this post, I think I’ve gone above and beyond your time in reading as it is. We still have JD’s and AH’s testimony to cover as well as some theories that I have on those involved, like Elon himself. I won’t make you wait for part 2 too long because I would like to dive into what to expect for Season 2 of JD v AH, but tell me in the comments what you think so far. I would love to have discussions here inside the Oops I Gossiped Again community and hear your thoughts!