While on the stand, Amber Heard denied allegations that she defecated in ex-husband Johnny Depp‘s bed “as a prank” after the pair had a fight.
“Absolutely not. Absolutely not. First of all, I don’t think that’s funny. I was not in a pranking mood. My life was falling apart,” the Aquaman star, 36, said during her testimony on Monday, May 16, as part of the ongoing defamation trial that the Pirates of the Caribbean star, 58, filed against her. “I had just been attacked on my 30th birthday … it was not really a jovial time, and I don’t think that’s funny, period. That’s disgusting.”
Depp alleged last month that he was “shown a picture” of human fecal matter left on his side of the bed, presumably left by Heard following a 2016 argument. At the time, a witness claimed it was meant as a practical joke. The Edward Scissorhands actor’s longtime executive chauffeur and security guard Starling Jenkins II testified on April 28, noting that he heard the Never Back Down actress say she left a “surprise” in Depp’s bed while Jenkins drove her to Coachella.
Heard, however, argued that neither she nor her friends would have done such a thing. “That’s not something a bunch of 30-year-olds would think is funny,” she said on Monday. The Magic Mike XXL actress also argued that the bed in question was in a house that she stayed in while fighting with Depp, so there would be no reason to assume that he would find the poop.
While she doesn’t recall seeing anything in the bed, Heard did note that it could have come from one of her dogs, who she left in the bed while packing for Coachella. “[Boo] had eaten Johnny‘s weed when she was a puppy and had bowel control issues for her entire life,” the Texas native testified.
Her Rum Diary costar — whom Heard was married to between 2015 and 2017 — is currently suing her for defamation in response to a 2018 opinion article she penned for The Washington Post, revealing she was a survivor of domestic abuse. Though Heard did not name Depp in the editorial, his attorneys have argued that based on her prior allegations of abuse at the hands of the actor, people would associate him with the piece.
She took the stand for the first time on May 4, where she alleged that Depp had a history of violence in their relationship, including the night before he allegedly found poop in the bed. “I struggle to find the words on how painful this is. This is horrible for me to sit here for weeks and relive everything here with people that I knew — some well, some not,” Heard told the court. “This is the most painful and difficult thing I’ve ever gone through for sure.”
While on the stand, Heard claimed that the first time Depp hit her was while the duo were drinking near a “jar of cocaine” and the Texas native asked the Lone Ranger star what the tattoo on his arm said. When he responded, “Wino Forever,” the Drive Angry star recalled laughing, which upset her then-husband. “He slapped me across the face and I laughed,” Heard said during her testimony. “I laughed because I didn’t know what else to do. I thought this must be a joke because I didn’t know what was going on. I just stared at him thinking that he was going to start laughing too.”
She added, “As a woman, I had never been hit like that,” before noting to the jury that the alleged incident is something she “will never forget.” The Charlie and the Chocolate Factor star initially got a tattoo reading, “Winona Forever” in the 1990s, as a tribute to his then-girlfriend, Winona Ryder. After they split in 1993, Depp had the tattoo changed to read “Wino Forever.”
Depp, for his part, emphatically denied Heard’s accusations of abuse while giving his testimony last month. “Never did I myself reach the point of striking Ms. Heard in any way, nor have I ever struck any woman in my life,” the Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas actor told the jury on April 19. “It’s been six years of trying times. It’s pretty strange when one day you’re Cinderella, so to speak, then 0.6 seconds you’re Quasimodo. I didn’t deserve that, nor did my children, nor did the people who have believed in me for all these years.”
If you or someone you know is experiencing domestic violence, please call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-7233 for confidential support.
