The attorney who represented Johnny Depp in his failed 2019-2020 defamation case against Amber Heard became a witness Thursday in the U.S. version, telling the court via pre-recorded deposition that he still believes Heard set up Depp in what he once called an “abuse hoax.”
“Yes, to some extent I have seen evidence of things that show her statements to be false,” Adam Waldman testified Thursday.
Remarks Waldman made to media during the U.K.-based trial are the basis of Heard’s $100 million counterclaim against Depp for defamation. Depp is suing Heard for $50 million, saying she libeled him in a 2018 Washington Post op-ed.
Waldman defended statements he made to media during the Daily Mail trial, calling Heard’s domestic violence allegations an “abuse hoax” telling the court pictures and videos sent to him by Marilyn Manson disprove Heard’s allegations. “As to that incident Thanksgiving 2013, I think those videos and photographs, yes, demolished her claim,” Waldman said.
He said there were two LAPD officers – including one trained in domestic violence – that testified there was no damage to the couple’s penthouse that Heard claimed was “destroyed.” He also said there are “nine other witnesses” that testified at various times “there were no injuries to her [Heard] face whatsoever between the 21st and the 27th, when suddenly there were bruises.”
Waldman began representing Depp after he and Heard divorced. He admitted to making several statements published in the Daily Mail in July 2020, including; “Amber Heard and her friends in the media used fake sexual violence allegations as both the sword and the shield”; “sexual violence hoax ‘facts’”; and “Quite simply this was an ambush a hoax.”
By that, he meant calls to police intended to set up Depp – “but the first attempt didn’t do the trick,” and “so, Amber and her friends spilled a little wine and roughed the place up, got their story straight under the direction of a lawyer and a publicist and then placed a second call to 911.”
The day gave way to several witnesses, almost all with something in common: A “former” in their relationship to Johnny Depp.
His former agent, a former friend, a former psychiatrist, a former sexual partner – all fell under the common theme of estrangement from the “Pirates” star, who multiple witnesses say severed a wide swath of his personal and professional relationships around the time of his 2016 divorce.
One of those formers from the old days: Ellen Barkin, who dated Depp in the mid-1990s and was a late witness Thursday.
Also via videotaped deposition, Barkin was asked if she’d ever seen Depp “lose control”; she recalled only one incident during the “Fear and Loathing” shoot when, during a fight with a friend or possibly an assistant, Depp threw a bottle across the Las Vegas hotel room. “More like he tossed it,” she said, noting that it flew toward the group she was standing in, but didn’t hit anyone.
Barkin testified that her relationship with Depp was a brief, bi-coastal, off-and-on cat-and-mouse game that started out as friends and turned physical – but don’t call it a “romance.”
“Can we switch that to ‘sexual’?” Barkin pointedly asked after the questioning attorney repeatedly referred to theirs as a “romantic relationship.” The attorney complied, calling it a “sexual relationship” fro there on.
Barkin went on to say that Depp “switched the buttons” from friends to something else when she moved from New York to Hollywood in 1994. “He would come to my house, I would go to his house … it was about a 10-minute drive,” she said, adding that Depp had an assistant then he would call “Pig.”
From the time they became friends throughout their never-properly-concluded relationship, Barkin was aware of his alcohol use.
“I was always aware,” she said. “He was drunk all – most – a lot of the time. He was a red wine drinker.”
The Emmy- and Tony-winning Barkin said Depp was “jealous” and “controlling” and often asked, “Where are you going? Who are you going with? What did you do last night?” She described an incident where Depp became upset: “I had a scratch on my back once that got him very, very angry because he insisted it came from me having sex with a person that wasn’t him.”
She said the last time they parted was to return home after a shoot, and Depp became overwrought with jealousy. “A lot of crying, jealous, don’t do this, don’t do that.”
“And then,” Barkin said, “I never heard from him again.”
Josh Dickey contributed to this report.