Johnny Depp Denies Amber Heard’s ‘Heinous and Disturbing’ Allegations While on Stand in Defamation Trial: ‘I’m Obsessed With the Truth’

Johnny Depp took the stand Tuesday in his defamation trial against his ex-wife Amber Heard, denying all allegations of domestic abuse.

“Nothing of the kind ever happened,” Depp said in court, adding. “Through the relationship there were arguments and things of that nature but never did I myself reach the point of striking Miss Heard in any way nor have I ever struck any woman in my life.”

Depp is suing Heard for $50 million, claiming that she defamed him in an op-ed she wrote for the Washington Post in 2018. While Heard never named Depp in the column, she heavily implied that Depp abused her throughout their marriage.

Heard later filed a countersuit accusing Depp of orchestrating a “smear campaign” against her via his lawsuit.

“So strange when one day you’re Cinderella, so to speak, and then in 0.6 seconds, you’re Quasimodo,” he said of how his relationship with Heard has impacted his career.

Depp identified the allegations Heard made roughly six years ago as “quite heinous and disturbing criminal acts against me that were not based in any species of truth.”

The actor later described the beginning of his relationship with Heard, saying that while the woman he met seemed “too good to be true,” about half a year later, she became another woman.

“She was attentive,” Depp said of Heard when they first met. “She was loving. She was smart. She was kind. She was funny. She was understanding … We had many things in common, certain blues music … literature.”

Depp lamented how his children, whom he shares with Vanessa Paradis, were treated following Heard’s allegations.

“I didn’t deserve that, nor did my children, nor did the people who have believed in me for all these years,” Depp said. “I didn’t want anybody, any of those people to believe that I had done them wrong or lied to them or that I was a fraud. I pride myself on honesty, I pride myself on truth. Truth is the only thing I’m interested in.”

Depp went on to describe himself as “obsessed with the truth,” adding, “Lies will get you nowhere, but lies build upon lies and build upon lies.”

The actor later built on previous testimony from his sister Christi Dembrowski, in which she detailed how their mother Betty Sue had abused them and their father.

“The verbal abuse, the psychological abuse, was almost worse than the beatings. The beatings were just physical pain,” he said. “The physical pain, you learn to deal with. You learn to accept it. You learn to deal with it.”

Depp later described his father as “shy” and “very kind,” adding, “There was never a moment when my father lost control and attacked my mother or hit my mother or even said a bad thing to my mother.”

Depp had previously lost a libel case against the publisher of Britain’s The Sun in 2020. The British High Court ruled that the claim Depp was a “wife-beater” was “substantially true.”

Watch above, via Law & Crime.

This story is developing and will be updated.