Amber Heard news: Actor says ‘binder’ of evidence not allowed in Depp trial could have changed verdict
Follow for the latest updates on the aftermath of the Amber Heard v Johnny Depp trial
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Your support makes all the difference.Amber Heard has claimed that a “binder” of evidence including therapist notes and text messages that the jury didn’t see could have changed the verdict in her defamation trial with ex-husband Johnny Depp.
Ms Heard’s full interview with NBC’s Savannah Guthrie aired on Dateline on Friday night, where the Aquaman actor said that her therapist had contemporaneously documented her allegations of abuse since 2011.
According to the notes, Ms Heard told her therapist that Mr Depp “hit her, threw her on floor” in an alleged incident in 2012.
Ms Heard’s team also shared text messages including where she appeared to tell her father that Mr Depp had kicked her on an airplane.
The notes and texts were not allowed as evidence in the case after the judge ruled them inadmissible.
Mr Depp has denied ever abusing Ms Heard.
On Thursday, Mr Depp’s team responded to Ms Heard’s interview saying: “It’s unfortunate that while Johnny is looking to move forward with his life, the defendant and her team are back to repeating, reimagining and re-litigating matters that have already been decided by the court and a verdict that was unequivocally decided by a jury in Johnny’s favor.”
Amber Heard suggests Johnny Depp’s exes are too afraid of backlash to accuse him of violence
Amber Heard says speaking out about alleged sexual violence is the ‘scariest thing’
Amber Heard claims text messages to father are evidence of physical abuse from Johnny Depp
What attorneys say about Amber Heard’s options to appeal Johnny Depp verdict
Heard claims text messages not allowed in trial show physical abuse by Depp
Amber Heard claimed that text messages she sent to friends and family during her relationship with Johnny Depp are evidence of the physical abuse she suffered during their marriage.
In her interview with NBC’s Savannah Guthrie, which aired on Dateline on Friday night, Ms Heard’s legal team shared multiple messages she had sent to her therapist and her father.
The text messages were not presented as evidence to the jury in the defamation trial after the judge deemed them inadmissible in court.
The Independent’s Amanda Whiting has the full story:
Amber Heard claims text messages are evidence of physical abuse from Johnny Depp
The actor claims evidence not shown at trial supports her allegations
Heard says ‘binder’ of therapist notes could have impacted jury’s verdict
Amber Heard told Savannah Guthrie in her interview on NBC’s Dateline that a “binder” of notes taken by her therapist could have impacted the verdict in the defamation case with Johnny Depp.
Ms Heard said she wished the jury had been allowed to see her therapist’s notes which she said dated back to near the start of the former couple’s relationship and documented the alleged abuse she suffered.
“There’s a binder worth of years of notes dating back to 2011 from the very beginning of my relationship that were taken by my doctor, who I was reporting the abuse to,” she told Ms Guthrie.
“Her notes represented years of real-time explanations of what was going on.”
In the notes, shared with Dateline, the therapist had written things like “He hit her, threw her on floor” and “He threw her against a wall and threatened to kill her”.
Mr Depp has denied ever abusing Ms Heard.
The judge did not allow the jury to see the notes at trial, ruling them inadmissible in court.
Heard suggests Depp’s exes are too afraid to speak out
Amber Heard has suggested that Johnny Depp’s other former partners may be too afraid of a backlash to come forward with accusations of abuse against the Pirates of the Caribbean star.
In her interview on NBC’s Dateline on Friday night, the Aquaman actor responded to a question from Savannah Guthrie about why she is the only one of Mr Depp’s exes to publicly accuse him of violence.
“Look what happened to me when I came forward,” she said. “Would you?”
Throughout the couple’s explosive defamation trial in Fairfax, Virginia, Ms Heard testified about multiple alleged incidents of abuse.
Mr Depp denied ever abusing Ms Heard and instead claimed that she was the abuser in their relationship.
In a dramatic moment of the trial, supermodel Kate Moss testified that her ex-boyfriend Mr Depp was never violent to her when they dated in the 1990s.
The Independent’s Rachel Sharp has the full story:
Amber Heard suggests Johnny Depp’s exes are afraid to accuse him of violence
At one dramatic moment of the trial, supermodel Kate Moss testified that her ex-boyfriend Johnny Depp never hit her
Heard grilled by Guthrie over audio played at trial
Amber Heard was grilled over audio that captured her “taunting” ex-husband Johnny Depp in her sitdown interview with Savannah Guthrie.
Ms Guthrie, whose husband worked as a consultant for Mr Depp’s legal team, probed Ms Heard about recordings played to the jury where she was heard “taunting” her then-husband about being a “victim of domestic violence”.
Ms Heard defended her comments saying she was speaking as “a person in an extreme amount of emotional, psychological and physical distress” while the TV host grilled her about Mr Depp’s allegations that she had been the “abuser” in their doomed relationship.
The Independent’s Rachel Sharp has the full story:
Amber Heard is grilled by Savannah Guthrie over audio ‘taunting’ Johnny Depp
NBC Today host grilled the Aquaman actor over audio clips played at the defamation trial
Heard says speaking out about alleged sexual violence is ‘scariest thing’
Amber Heard described speaking out about the alleged sexual violence that she suffered as the “scariest, most intimidating thing” in her first interview since a jury sided with Johnny Depp in their defamation case.
The Aquaman actor told Savannah Guthrie in her interview on NBC’s Dateline on Friday night that she was “terrified” about being cross-examined by her ex-husband’s legal team and “not being believed” about her allegations.
“The scariest, most intimidating thing for anybody talking about sexual violence is not being believed, being called a liar, or being humiliated,” she said.
Ms Heard told Ms Guthrie, whose husband has worked as a consultant for Mr Depp’s legal team, that she was not being “vindictive” by sitting down for an interview in the aftermath of the case.
The Independent’s Rachel Sharp has the full story:
Amber Heard says speaking out about alleged sexual violence is the ‘scariest thing’
‘The scariest, most intimidating thing for anybody talking about sexual violence is not being believed, being called a liar, or being humiliated,’ she tells Savannah Guthrie
Heard says Depp fans outside court made her feel ‘less than human'
Amber Heard said that Pirates of the Caribbean fans who gathered outside the courthouse in Virginia made her feel “removed from humanity”
Ms Heard described to Ms Guthrie in her NBC interview how she would have to pass swarms of supporters of her ex-husband when she arrived at court each day.
“Every single day I passed from three, four, sometimes six city blocks filled with people, holding signs, saying ‘Burn the witch’, ‘Death to Amber’,” she recalled.
“After three and a half weeks I took the stand and saw a courtroom packed full with Captain Jack Sparrow fans, who were vocal, energised...
“This was the most humiliating and horrible thing I’ve ever been through,” she continued. “I have never felt more removed from my own humanity. I felt less than human.”
Heard says she still ‘loves’ Depp
Amber Heard revealed she still “loves” ex-husband Johnny Depp even in the aftermath of their bitter defamation trial as viewers were shown old footage of the former couple’s engagement reveal in Friday night’s Dateline interview.
“Absolutely. I love him. I loved him with all my heart,” she said.
“I have no bad feelings or ill will toward him at all.”
The Independent’s Rachel Sharp has the full story:
Amber Heard says she ‘still loves’ Johnny Depp in NBC interview
‘Absolutely. I love him. I loved him with all my heart,’ she told Savannah Guthrie in an interview airing on the NBC Today show on Wednesday morning
Heard says she ‘tried her best’ at marriage to Depp
Amber Heard said that she “tried her best” at her “deeply broken” marriage to Johnny Depp.
“I tried the best I could to make a deeply broken relationship work. And I couldn’t. I have no bad feelings or ill will towards him at all,” the Aquaman actress told Savannah Guthrie in her Dateline interview.
“I know that might be hard to understand, or it might be really easy to understand.
“If you’ve just ever loved anyone, it should be easy.”
How successful can Heard be in appealing verdict?
Amber Heard has said she plans to appeal the jury’s verdict in the defamation trial after she was ordered to pay Johnny Depp $8.35m in damages.
The jury of five men and two women announced on 1 June it had found that Ms Heard defamed Mr Depp on three statements. Jurors also found that Ms Heard was defamed by one of three statements in her countersuit.
So how successful can she be in her appeal?
The Independent‘s Clemence Michallon spoke with three attorneys about Ms Heard’s possible grounds for an appeal, or even a new trial: Lisa Bloom of The Bloom Firm, whose clients have included Janice Dickinson, Mischa Barton, and several victims of Jeffrey Epstein; Jesse Weber, a host and attorney at the Law & Crime network, who covered the trial from the courthouse in Fairfax, Virginia; and Mitra Ahouraian, an entertainment attorney in Beverly Hills who represents actors, directors, producers, and musicians.
Read what they had to say here:
What attorneys say about Amber Heard’s options to appeal Johnny Depp verdict
Ms Heard’s attorney Elaine Bredehoft has said her client will appeal the verdict, which largely favoured Mr Depp. Clémence Michallon speaks to three attorneys about Ms Heard’s potential avenues
Heard insists she never ‘instigated violence'
Amber Heard denied Johnny Depp’s claim that she instigated violence in her sitdown interview with Savannah Guthrie.
“I never had to instigate it, I responded to it,” she said.
“When you’re living in violence and it becomes normal, as I testified to, you have to adapt, you adopt strategies to cope with it, and if it meant, as I testified to, if it meant the difference between a broken nose or a sore cheek, I would do it.”
The Independent’s Louis Chilton has the full story:
Amber Heard says she ‘responded’ to violence but ‘never had to instigate it’
‘When you’re living in violence and it becomes normal, you have to adapt, you adopt strategies to cope with it’