Johnny Depp elicits laughs with happy hour joke as he recalls doing drugs with Marilyn Manson

‘I mean, isn’t happy hour any time?’

Johnny Depp got a laugh from the courtroom as he said every hour is “happy hour” and recalled doing drugs with Marilyn Manson, giving him a pill to stop him from talking so much.

The defamation trial between Mr Depp and ex-wife Amber Heard began on Monday 11 April in Fairfax, Virginia following Mr Depp’s lawsuit against his ex-wife in March 2019. Mr Depp is arguing that she defamed him in a December 2018 op-ed published in The Washington Post titled “I spoke up against sexual violence — and faced our culture’s wrath. That has to change”.

Johnny Depp trial – latest updates

Heard lawyer Ben Rottenborn asked Mr Depp about his drug use, to which Mr Depp said he “found” drugs at an early age. Mr Depp said earlier in the trial that he first took one of his mother’s “nerve pills” at the age of 11.

Mr Rottenborn asked Mr Depp if he remembered taking pills with Mr Manson, to which Mr Depp said he once gave Marilyn Manson a pill so that he would stop talking so much.

Mr Depp said he was struggling in the spring of 2013.

“You would sometimes drink whiskey during the morning at that time?” Mr Rottenborn asked.

“I mean, isn’t happy hour any time,” Mr Depp responded.

Mr Depp said that a box shown in an image in court wasn’t used to carry cocaine, “but it looks like it would fit”.

In her 2018 op-ed, Ms Heard partly wrote that “like many women, I had been harassed and sexually assaulted by the time I was of college age. But I kept quiet — I did not expect filing complaints to bring justice. And I didn’t see myself as a victim”.

“Then two years ago, I became a public figure representing domestic abuse, and I felt the full force of our culture’s wrath for women who speak out,” she added at the time.

While Mr Depp isn’t named in the piece, his legal team argues that it contains a “clear implication that Mr Depp is a domestic abuser”, which they say is “categorically and demonstrably false”. Mr Depp is seeking damages of “not less than $50m”.

Ms Heard has filed a $100m counterclaim against Mr Depp for nuisance and immunity from his allegations.