As Johnny Depp and Amber Heard's dueling defamation cases got underway on Tuesday, both legal teams previewed the case to come in their opening statements.
On Tuesday, lawyers for both actors, who were married from 2015 to 2016, previewed the weeks of expected testimony to come in their opening statements.of the firm Brown Rudnick, went first, saying, “For nearly 30 years, Mr. Depp built a reputation as one of the most talented actors in Hollywood, a respected artist whose name was associated with success at the box office. Today, his name is associated with a lie, a false statement uttered by his former wife.
Depp’s legal team’s opening, together with the case’s pretrial proceedings and publicity, has demonstrated its aim to portray Heard as a manipulator and aggressor in the relationship, as well as a woman obsessed with her image in Hollywood. A second portion of the opening statement, given by attorneyalleged that Heard wooed Depp at the onset of their relationship, winning his heart despite his reservations.
As Depp looked on, his face was covered in part by his right hand, knuckles tattooed with the word “S-C-U-M.” The markings, now revised, had previously read “S-L-I-M,” what he once called Heard in reference to Humphrey Bogart’s pet name for Lauren Bacall in their movieopening statement on behalf of Heard, he read the entirety of his client’sopinion piece—headlined “I Spoke Up Against Sexual Violence — And Faced Our Culture’s Wrath.
“Amber did accuse Johnny of abuse and she saw how he, at the same time that her career took a downturn and that he did everything that he could to try to wreck her career as the evidence will see, that she accused him of abuse,” he told the jury. “That statement is true. You don’t need to relive every intimate detail of their marriage. You don’t need to decide what happened on any individual day of their marriage to determine that the First Amendment protects that statement because it is true.
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