The Johnny Depp and Amber Heard drama continues. Following the 2020 verdict that saw Depp’s lawsuit against The Sun for referring to him as a “wife beater” being dismissed, the Pirates of the Caribbean actor is back in court, this time because he’s suing Heard for defamation (which prompted her to countersue for $100 million). Unfortunately for Depp, his case has suffered a major blow due to the dismissal of a key witness.
As reported by Insider, the third day of testimony in the Johnny Depp/Amber Heard trial saw Georgina Deuters, the wife of Stephen Deuters (one of Depp’s employees and collaborators) being called to the stand by Depp’s legal team. However, while Deuters was recalling past events, she was dismissed from the stand, and Heard’s lawyers convened with Judge Penney Azcarate. After the jurors were dismissed from the room, Azcarate, who’s presiding over this trial taking place in Fairfax County, Virginia, asked Deuters if she’d watched any of the trial prior to her testimony. Deuters answered she’d seen some “clips of it online,” and from there, Azcarate said she could leave the courthouse and instructed Deuters’ testimony to be stricken from the record.
Before she was dismissed from the stand, Georgina Deuters talked about things like how her husband met Johnny Depp, time she spent with Amber Heard when she was dating Depp (she describing the Aquaman actress back then as “very charming”), and how Depp’s drinking and drug use never resulted in a major personality change, in her opinion. However, because of Deuters’ dismissal, the jury is not allowed to take what she said into consideration when the time comes for them to deliberate.
For those who haven’t been paying close attention to the legal messiness between Johnny Depp and Amber Heard, back in 2018, Heard wrote a Washington Post op-ed where she talked about being a survivor of domestic violence. Although the actress didn’t mention any names in the piece, Depp felt she was discussing her marriage to him. This provided the basis for the defamation lawsuit he filed in early 2019, which alleges that Heard’s words caused Disney to drop Depp as Jack Sparrow from the Pirates of the Caribbean film series.
Johnny Depp’s defamation trial against Amber Heard kicked off earlier this week with juror selection, which included quiz questions concerning both actors’ careers. Shortly thereafter, both legal teams delivered their opening remarks, with Depp’s team targeting Heard’s believability, and Heard’s team insisting that her op-ed wasn’t about Depp, and that Disney’s decision to part ways with him came from the company’s own accord. Isaac Baruch, a childhood friend of Depp’s, is among the other witnesses who have taken the stand, saying that while he’s on Depp’s side, he’s also tired of what’s been going on for the past “six years.”
There’s a long ways to go until the Johnny Depp/Amber Heard trial reaches a conclusion, and the rumor that Heard was nearly replaced as Mera in Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom may even be brought up during the proceedings. Keep visiting CinemaBlend for more updates on this event.
